


Wasteland, Baby

by Atticwright



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Guns, It's a wasteland adventure fic but it's not Edgy, Mutual Pining, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Relationship, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Some violence and minimal gore, the stolen century era, will update rating if needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-30 16:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20100088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atticwright/pseuds/Atticwright
Summary: When they set out from the Starblaster, the prospect of nearly a year alone with him seemed like more than ample time to have the discussion. So why had it felt impossible to broach, to the point that she was starting to worry that it would never happen?...Lup assured herself, we just haven’t had time, yet.She didn’t count the nights that they had climbed into their sleeping bags and laid in silence, eyes open, and the thick miasma of expectancy hung in the air; when typical pleasantries wound down to a close and each waited for the other to say something new and important- no, they didn’t count.She rehearsed again.---It’s Cycle 46. Lup has decided that this is the year she’s going to tell Barry how she feels. And damn it, she’s going to tell him. She just needs to make sure that they have enough gas to keep their battlewagon running, and that they aren’t robbed by bandits, and that she can keep Barry alive long enough to do it.(And There Was Only One Bed: The Fic)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We don't get a lot of Lup-pining-for-Barry fics but I'm here to change that. B)

A searing, dry wind buffeted Lup’s face and she turned away from her survey to pick a grain of sand from her eyes. During their flyover they had seen several small tent towns dotting the surface, but from their chosen base here, there were none for miles. They’d had a rough landing on a dune that turned out to be less solid than appeared, meaning they were grounded until the hull could be repaired. 

It was Cycle 46 and Lup was in love with Barry. She had been for a while. And it’d been a fucking wild ride. What’s more- and this was the even wilder part- she was pretty sure he was in love with her too. 

Lup picked up a broom and took to sweeping the sand on the deck of the ship. The rest of the crew were busy, assessing the mechanisms in the ship that gave out on landing, analyzing readings on the new plane, portioning supplies. But she was formulating a plan for the year.

Barry and Lup were familiar with each other on a level of domesticity generally reserved for elderly married couples. They worked together for about 10 hours each day, and then they often spent their free time together too. They ate meals in the lab together and sometimes they burned the midnight oil and ended up falling asleep next to each other. Taako pointed all this out to her once while prepping dinner and earned a spoonful of cream sauce splattered across his shirt.

It wasn’t just the familiarity that felt right about the idea of them being together. It was Barry’s warmth, and his kindness, and his humor, and his skill. It was the trust he had to divulge his fears to her and the resilience he maintained in spite of those fears. It was his respect for her expertise in the times when she was more capable. It was his careful hands tending to her wounds after a battle.

It seemed obvious to everyone at this point that the relationship that Lup and Barry had was different than the relationships they had with the rest of the crew. “I mean, you guys are like _this_,” Lucretia once said, holding up two fingers crossed together tightly. Lup had never been _like this_ with anyone in her life except for her twin brother, and she wasn’t really sure what it meant to be _like this_ with someone who you weren’t related to, and who you were attracted to, and cherished with a tender spot in your heart you didn’t previously know existed. She’d dated before, of course, but the nomadic lifestyle she and Taako had kept wasn’t conducive to long-term, committed relationships.

It had taken a long time to even recognize that what she felt for Barry was capital-L Love, and even longer to decide what she was going to do about it. And she changed her mind about her decision every couple years. But the longer they were trapped in this loop, the more years they spent escaping, then starting over, then escaping, then starting over again, the more she felt like she was missing out on years she could have spent with him by her side, not just next to each other but _together_. 

A few weeks ago, she tried to kiss Barry.

She had been feeling a little vulnerable. They’d just survived a fierce storm and a fight to save the locals they’d befriended. The whole crew was up all day and night fortifying their village against unrelenting winds and flooding. They’d almost lost half the crew to the violent weather, but somehow they lived, _they all lived_. Finally, the storm broke and the crew was back on the ship, taking stock of what they could donate to the relief efforts and taking a moment to rest. Taako was cooking dinner. Lup was standing in the dark pantry, pretending to look for potatoes but really just staring blankly at the shelves. Barry peeked inside the curtained doorway and, disregarding the light switch and his lack of darkvision, came in to stand across from Lup. He looked so tired, she thought, but he was looking at her too, and neither of them had spoken, and it was quiet and cold in here, and in that moment she figured the best place for her to be was in his arms. 

She hugged him, and he hugged her too, tightly, and she felt so relieved. “We’re all safe,” she marveled. “We’re gonna end this year with everyone.” 

“We’re all safe,” he repeated, quietly, right next to her ear. Lup thought it would be fine if she let this hug go on a little longer, that she’d let him break it. But more time passed and he didn’t. And she decided to tease propriety a bit and just let it continue as long as she could. Surely, at some point he’d get shy and she’d feel guilty and they would part and maybe smile nervously and distract themselves with conversation- like usual. 

But suddenly Lup got the distinct feeling that that wasn’t going to happen. At some point, maybe in the last year, maybe in the last few seconds, maybe the two of them had crossed some undetectable threshold. His hands placed gently but firmly on her back, his head leaned into hers, his slow, calm breathing, all signaling to her that he felt no need to end this respite. And it thrilled her, and it scared her, and she felt mesmerized as she carefully drew back from his shoulder to graze his cheek with her nose. 

Their foreheads were so close she couldn’t even focus to see his face. Lup thought, maybe, he was hoping for a cue. She looked at his lips. She felt his breath on her chest. She started to lean close.

Just a little bit, Barry turned away.

Oh. 

Lup let go of him and stood up straight, smoothing her clothes nervously. She stole a glance at his face and realized he looked a bit stricken. This was bad. Bad move. Fuck.

“I’m gonna go check on dinner,” she murmured.

“Okay,” she heard him say, but she was already out the door.

Lup had spent the rest of the night in her room in a panic. “I tried to kiss him,” she sobbed. It was the first thing she was able to say to Taako when he came to get her to eat.

“You _what_?” He dropped onto the bed where she was sitting and pulled his knees in so he could squeeze close to her.

“I just, I thought- We were hugging and I had this feeling that we could- we _should_\- but then he turned away and I guess he didn’t-” She buried her face in her pillow to gasp and shed a few more tears.

Taako inhaled slowly and breathed out just as slow. “Oh, lordy,” he muttered as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“And he- he _knows_ now. There’s no way I can just deny that that happened. And I took a guess and I was wrong and I blew any chance there was-” She hiccupped. “I just, I really _thought_-”

“Hey, hey, hold on now,” Taako shushed, “I don’t think we need to start assuming that this is the end of anything. You know how fucking awkward Barold can be when he’s surprised, maybe that’s what happened, okay?” 

Lup whimpered and considered the idea, but couldn’t formulate any words besides, “I don’t know…”

“I think-” He sighed again. “I think the only way you’re going to know for sure how he feels is to hear the words coming from his mouth, and the only way you’re going to have any peace about this is to finally make it happen. It’s been fucking long enough, hasn’t it, Lulu?” Taako smoothed out a strand of her hair and placed it behind her ear. “I mean, here’s a positive: I think this might actually be the perfect opening for you.”

Lup groaned weakly. He had a good point. She’d spent countless hours lost in her thoughts, trying to come up with the ideal strategy for initiating that conversation. Mostly she hoped it would just happen naturally and she’d recognize that moment when it came, but so far it hadn’t come. Or maybe it had and she’d chosen to ignore it.

She turned her head so she wasn’t muffled by the pillow. “What if the answer is no? All this time I’ve avoided it because if I find out there’s no chance, that would be just… How could I just keep working with him and living with him and-” Lup pushed her eyes back into the pillow as more tears began to well up.

“Lulu, I don’t think you have much to worry about, if I’m being completely and totally honest.” 

_Completely and totally honest_. Here was another piece of this whole complicated, unrequited love situation: Lup had a strong suspicion that Taako knew what Barry felt about her. The twins had had enough conversations on the topic that she had noticed the carefully-chosen words Taako used whenever Lup asked him what his theories were. She’d made a lot of attempts to pry and to get him to trip up and tell her what he knew- but he was good at this, at no surprise to her. She was better than anyone at seeing through Taako’s facades but occasionally he was able to worm his way out of confrontations with her too. Over time she begrudgingly accepted that this was the unspoken arrangement- that Barry might also be talking to Taako about his feelings, and that Taako might be keeping secrets for him, as well as Lup. It was frustrating but somehow she had a touch of respect for it. She was glad Taako had other people in his life he’d keep secrets for. But oh boy, what a mess.

Maybe it was getting to be time to untangle themselves from this web.

Taako brought her dinner to her room and told the crew that she wasn’t feeling well. She rehearsed what she would say to Barry, but after a few run-throughs she passed out. She’d forgotten about the exhausting day she’d had. 

Lup woke with the dawn and started her day with a cup of coffee out on the deck. This was routine for her. When you lived in close quarters with six other people, any moment of quiet you could steal was valuable. She contemplated the contrast of the storm-ravaged land around her and the golden rays of the sun shining through the last remaining clouds. It was a beautiful, calm morning. The air was cool and carried a strong scent of earth and rain. There would be a lot of rebuilding to do. But they’d done a lot of work to protect the town and its people, and she knew the damage would have been much worse if they hadn’t.

She heard the cabin door open behind her and immediately recognized Barry’s footfalls on the wood. She didn’t dare turn around. _Fuck. It’s too early for this,_ she thought. 

He came to stand next to her with his own coffee and watched the sun rise, too. Lup was aware she was making this weirder by not greeting him, but she was too preoccupied trying to remember the words she came up with last night. The longest, quietest moment passed. 

Barry opened his mouth. Nothing came out at first. He sighed and tried again.

“Do you... Have you ever wanted something, for so long… so badly, that when you finally thought it might happen, it… kind of terrified you?”

All of her words were caught in her throat. She looked down at her cup and realized her hands were shaking a little bit. She rested them on the rail. The only way she was going to get her voice to work was to whisper, so she went with it. “Yeah, I think… I think I know the feeling.”

Barry stared down at his coffee too. “There’s that worry that- I don’t know. Maybe once you get it, you’ll find out it was different than you imagined, or maybe… Maybe you’ll miss the wanting.”

Lup was nodding slightly, now. “Maybe after all this time you’ve built it into your identity and you don’t know what it’s gonna be like now that it’s gone?”

He was silent, but she thought she could take it to mean he agreed.

Finally, he turned to her. She turned to him, too. Instead of meeting her eyes, Barry let his gaze linger on his coffee, but that was okay. She knew it could be hard for him, sometimes. “I think, though… You can’t just spend your whole life wondering, right? If you spent all that time wanting something to happen, and you don’t let it, didn’t you waste all that time?” His voice was quiet but even. “What if… what if you miss out on something amazing?”

Gods, she loved him. Lup smiled a warm, relieved smile. She even started to feel a bit giddy. “Yeah. I don’t think there’s any reason to be scared, really. I think it’s okay if we just... trust ourselves.”

Barry looked at her then. They looked at each other for a while.

The bell calling the crew to rise chimed. This meant Captain was up and dressed and Taako was probably cooking eggs. Time to start the day.

They took their mugs and walked back in, side by side. Nothing more was said about it for the remaining couple weeks of the year, but Lup wondered if Taako had spoken to Barry after they had their own conversation in her room. She didn’t ask him. She was just glad for the reassurance from Barry, grateful to hear something from him, finally, finally, _finally_. 

It was vague and indirect and characteristically _Barry_. But this time, Lup knew that that was the cue.

And all of them were materializing as strands of white light, and they were reformed standing in their designated spots, and Cycle 46 began. Davenport brought the ship down, and it landed with a shudder and a loud _crack_, but everyone was okay, physically. Immediately they began identifying the damages and assigning tasks, busy as always.

This world was bleak and harsh. But as Lup swept sand off the deck, keeping her hands occupied as her brain worked, she felt a fluttering in her chest.

This was the year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is the first Blupjeans fic on this site titled "Wasteland, Baby" (taken from the Hozier song, of course.)
> 
> I don't get a lot of time to write so I might be slow-ish to update, but I'm excited to be writing fic again! Thanks for reading :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so… According to Petals to the Metal, battlewagons and motorcycles and tanks exist in Faerun, you just can’t say “car.” Since Faerun is pretty similar to the Two-Sun world, the gang probably knows about them, but do they operate the same way as cars as we know them? I dunno. I’ll probably take some liberties with the words they use and how familiar they are with the cars in this world, so just be chill if anything contradicts, thank you friends.

“What the hell?” Merle murmured, leaving his indoor box garden to peer outside. One by one, the others gathered on the deck to investigate the noise that was slowly building. It sounded like an... engine? But not a quietly oscillating hum like the bond engine. This was more like a deep, rumbling roar, carrying far over the sand.

Then, they saw him. Magnus had returned from his scouting mission, and he’d returned in the cab of what looked like a massive, smoke-spewing motorwagon. He crested the dune and leaned on the horn for a bit before carefully weaving his way down the incline. Several gasps and curses went up from the rest of the crew when he began to slide on the sand, but the deep tread on the wheels salvaged their grip and the machine arrived safely in front of the ship a moment later. They all ran down the gangplank to meet him.

Magnus shut off the engine and whooped at them before opening the door and hopping down. And it was quite a hop. The rubber wheels were about as tall as Merle. Metal pipes sprouted from behind the cab like two devil’s horns. The body of it was at least 15 feet long and cobbled together with so many panels of different kinds of metal it looked like a patchwork quilt. It almost looked _ armored. _ The back half of it was an open bed for cargo, and something was back there, covered under a canvas tarp.

“Look what I found!” he cheered.

“Where on earth-” Davenport started.

“I traded it! For some magic shit. Not a lot of people can do magic here, apparently!”

“Please tell me the magic shit was not the Skin of Replenishment I _ lent _you for the trip,” said Taako.

“Yeah they really liked all the water. Come check out what else it got me.” Magnus led them back to the bed and unlatched the tailgate. He gave them all a delighted look of anticipation before yanking the tarp off the heap. 

It was a motorcycle- but more specifically, it was a motorcycle that had had so many parts bolted to it or replaced over time that perhaps it was not the same motorcycle that it originally had been, but rather a second, new motorycle.

“Does it...work?” Lucretia asked. Her arms were folded and she maintained a safe distance from the monstrous thing.

“Yeah it worked when they brought it to me.” He gestured at several metal containers lined up in the truck bed. "They gave me a few tanks of gasoline to get em going but eventually we'd have to refuel. Might be a fun way to get around this year while the ship is grounded, though," Magnus said. 

Around front, Barry had his head under the hood. "This thing's powered entirely by internal combustion, looks like," he shouted to the rest.

"Not to mention, this thing will be perfect for scavenging scrap to repair the hull with." Magnus slapped the side of the truck. "And oh boy is there tons of scrap just lying around out there!"

"Good, good." Davenport looked as though a weight was lifting off his shoulders at Magnus's confidence in repairing the ship. "They just gave you a giant motorwagon and a motorcycle in exchange for some magical trinkets? What kind of an economy do they have here?" he asked.

"Well, that's just it, mostly they trade stuff. And society is real fragmented out there, there's a real survivalist mentality amongst folks- at least that's the vibe I got. The camp I found had some nice people but they told me I was lucky to bump into them first. I guess there are some real predatory groups around, gangs and shit. And they know what magic is but nobody can do it! Except if you're special? I dunno. They were super jazzed about the Replenishing skin. Water's hard to come by."

"So it's real great that you gave it away, huh!" Taako said.

"In exchange for a _ motorwagon _ and a _ motorcycle!” _

Davenport held up two hands at them. "Guys, guys, we'll be fine. We have plenty of magical means for making food and water. However, this could be a great way to kill two birds with one stone: gathering materials to repair the ship with, and finally getting rid of all the useless clutter we've collected over the last 45 years." 

"Yard sale!" Merle cheered.

Lup hopped up into the bed of the truck and started unbuckling the straps that held the bike in place. "I don't know about you guys but I want to see what this baby can do!" 

Just as they managed to lower the thing safely to the ground, a distant, reverberating pop rang out, accompanied by a white flash in the sky. They knew right away what it was.

Everyone whirled to scan the heavens. Davenport blurted, "Where-"

"There!" Lup jabbed a finger up and to the south. 

The Light of Creation had breached this reality and was cutting a silent, streaming arc across the clear blue sky. Immediately, Lup and Barry sprinted back onboard the ship.

"Holy shit holy shit it entered right above us-" Barry was babbling as they careened into the lab.

"I've got the tracker," Lup said, yanking open a cupboard and grabbing the handheld equipment within.

Barry practically slammed into a panel of dials and began spinning them as carefully as his frantic hands would allow. "We're tuned perfectly," he declared after a second, and the two of them ran out onto the deck.

The tracker was a vaguely raygun-evoking piece of tech. It had a handle on one end and a dish with a needle on the other. Lup pointed it at the skyline in the direction they saw the Light fly. Connected to the gun by a spiral cord was a screen, held in her other hand. It was steadily charting a jagged line across an incremented timeline, energy readings going up, going down. They'd be able to interpret the readouts from this to determine roughly how far away it would be when it landed. It was one of their most useful inventions from their time on this mission. Unfortunately, it only worked within a certain distance of the Light's initial entrypoint.

"This looks really good," Barry muttered, peering closely over Lup's shoulder. His voice tickled her ear a little but she put it out of her mind. 

After a few moments, the line began to lower gradually, then quickly as the Light exited their range. No longer sensing its energy, the device turned off.

"Let's check this out."

Inside the lab, the two of them gathered up the accordion of paper printouts that had been pouring onto the floor while they were on the deck. Lup draped them flat across the island desk in the center of the room so they could view the trajectory in full. 

"Nearly dead-south. Consistent arc. Seemingly no wind or weather affecting the path. Interesting," Barry observed. He read off a long string of numbers which Lup inserted into several formulas and then began calculating. Eventually she had a page full of some very important chicken scratch, which she presented to Barry. The Light had landed on the opposite hemisphere, but it’s location was known.

"I think we got really lucky with this one," Lup said, as Barry poured over the numbers. He had a hand covering his mouth and his eyebrows knitted low, a look that was deeply familiar to Lup.

"Mmm," he mumbled. He circled a few things with a pencil and punched a couple more numbers into a calculator. His expression of focus released and became one of excitement. "This has to be almost exact," he said. 

She returned his smile. "I mean I don't want to jinx anything but what if this turns out to be an easy year? We've got currency for the locals, we know exactly where the Light is..." 

"Well," he shrugged. "We don't know what's going to be between us and the Light."

Lup took back the sheet of paper and read the results again. "True. And this... oh.” She frowned. “We're not going to have the ship for a while. Meaning this number is actually a way bigger obstacle than I was thinking."

"Oh. Right, the ship." Barry put his chin back in his hand. "We also saw that mountain range cutting across during our flyover. If we can’t find a usable pass, we’d have to go around… This could be a nearly year-long journey on foot, one-way. There might not be time for a return journey."

They spent a silent moment working through all possible solutions in their heads.

Lup spoke up first. "How fast do you think that motorcycle can go?"

\--

Magnus and Lup made a fun afternoon of pushing the bike to its limits, timing each other to find its top speed, attempting stunts off of whatever natural ramps they could find. Barry took a turn so he could get a feel for how it drove, and he caught on pretty quickly. Merle desperately wanted to try it out but his legs were too short to reach the foot holds, so he settled for a ride in the back seat. Eventually they got Lucretia to take a turn in the back as well, and she squealed the whole lap around the ship. Periodically, Davenport would yell half-heartedly not to wreck the thing before they could get any use out of it. He was mostly ignored. 

“Hey, Maggie maybe one of our projects this year can be making that truck shorty-accessible, whaddya think?” Merle said when he hopped off the back seat of the bike.

“Yeah, I’m sure we could rig something up so you can reach the pedals!” 

“And between you and me,” Merle fake-whispered, putting a hand to shield his mouth but speaking plenty loud enough for Davenport to hear, “I’ve seen Cap’n eyeing that thing with that speed-lust in his eye, ya know?”

Magnus played along as Davenport rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, Cap’n’s just raring to strap in and haul ass like a bat outta hell.”

“See he _ had _a big machine that goes really fast but it’s broken now, so he doesn’t know what to do with himself!”

“Poor guy’s just so lost when he can’t go fast.”

Davenport cut in, coolly, _ “If _ Mr. Vehicle Proficiency here will let me touch it, I suppose it would be smart for the truck to be outfitted for me to drive in case of an emergency.”

“I guess it would be fair for me to share my toys…”

_ “Excuse,” _ Taako piped up, “You did trade my magic waterskin for that thing so technically it’s mine and I’m letting you use it.”

“Thank you for your generosity, Taako,” Davenport deadpanned.

\--

The rest of the evening was spent planning the trip over dinner. They sketched an approximate map of the region from what they knew so far and plotted a path as best they could. 

“We’ll need the truck to carry scrap for repairing the ship, so whoever goes will have to take the motorcycle. It’s very likely much too dangerous for one person to go alone, and the bike seats two anyway, so this will be a two-person mission,” Lup said, carefully shuffling her lab reports over mashed potatoes and meatloaf.

“Who’s going?” Davenport asked.

“Well…” Lup began. “Magnus sounds like he wants to be involved with ship repairs, is that right?” When Magnus nodded vigorously, mouth full, she continued. “Cap’n’port will probably want to oversee that, and Lucretia, Taako, how do you feel?”

Lucretia paused her recording in her journal and gave a characteristic timid shrug. “I mean, it sounds like an adventure but my survivalist skills are still a bit, well, lacking. I don’t want to seem like I can’t be useful-”

Taako patted Lucretia gently on the shoulder. “You can say it, honey. Here, I’ll say it for both of us: ‘That sounds hard and I would rather stay on the ship.’”

Davenport nodded. “Merle, I think it would be smart if you stay with the majority of the crew to give us the best chance at making it out of here. You’re not thinking of… Were you gonna pay_ him _ a visit this year?” He always stumbled when he had to talk about John like he was a real person and not just an amorphous cloud of devastation.

Merle waved, shaking his head. “Nah, actually, I think I might be done going for a while. He was a real bummer to play chess with anyway.”

“Merle, you know, I have a chessboard too,” Davenport said.

“Oh yeah! Hey, we should do that.”

“What about you and Barry, Lup? You know how to track the Light better than any of us.”

Barry and Lup shared a look for a brief second.

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

Davenport nodded again, smoothing his mustache idly. “It’s going to be just the two of you out there for months, do you think you’ll be able to handle it?”

The navigation? The limited resources? The dangers on the road? Lup was pretty confident that they’d be fine. Being alone, _ alone, _ with Barry, for months? It was everything she had hoped for but suddenly had her feeling a little intimidated.

“Yep.”

Barry also hesitated, for the slightest moment. “Yep,” he repeated.

Across the table, Taako rolled his eyes and finished his wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that Merle is really fun to write? Clint's characterization is so distinct it's easy to slip into his voice. Anyway. Thanks for hanging in there while I update at a snail's pace ;)


	3. Chapter 3

The next day was spent digging through boxes, closets, drawers, and underneath beds. The crew unearthed trinkets and equipment that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. In their nearly 50 years of travel, it was hard not to hold onto supplies “just in case.” It was never known whether the next cycle would be barren of resources or not. And there was something about keeping a token from each place they visited, especially each world that couldn’t be saved, that was there and then vanished. It was a reminder that each of those planes had a history and a culture that no one would remember but them.

But the Starblaster was getting a bit heavy.

Davenport set another cardboard box down on the deck with a heavy _ thunk. _ He patted his brow with a handkerchief and stretched his sore back. “Lucretia, can you read off the list again to make sure we’ve got this pile accounted for?” he asked, gesturing at the assortment laid out on a blanket next to them.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Orange potion that turns you into a wererat for one hour.”

“Check.”

“Misty Oil which gives creature ability to teleport once slathered all over body.”

“Yuck. Check.”

“Traitor’s Rope, a rope that cannot be knotted.”

“Check.”

“A glamored javelin that assumes the appearance of a beach ball until just before it hits something.”

“Too dangerous for this crew. Check.”

“A blue potion that turns gold when poured onto food that is poisonous to eat.”

“Check- should be useful to someone.”

“A ruby amulet that protects the wearer from beheadment.”

“Check.”

“A tiny boat crafted from a mouse's skull.”

“Check. Maybe some weird child will like it.”

“A linen handkerchief that is constantly cool to the touch.”

“Might have been nice to keep that with this climate, but will probably be worth a lot.”

“A spherical puzzle box which we've never been able to open.”

“This is the one we detected divination magic inside?”

“Yep.”

“Shame we never got it…”

“A monstrous eye preserved in quartz that spins around sometimes.”

“Check. I hope people here can appreciate a good novelty paperweight.”

“Necromancer’s Saddle, brings to life the skeleton of a dead animal to use for a mount.”

“Check- I think Barry was interested in that one but it just takes up so much goddamn room.”

Lucretia crouched down to sift through an open box with smaller items inside. “We’ve got some ornamental daggers that may or may not be cursed… An assortment of jewelry that might also be cursed… An ivory flute that looks like a snake. An iron statue of a humanoid with an owl’s head. A fork that makes food extra salty.”

Davenport shook his head. “And we’ve still got about 10 boxes of more weird shit to haul out here.”

“Just saying, Cap? We’re going to have to be really intentional about legal disclaimers with these things when people ask about them.” Lucretia said.

“Oh, definitely. We do not have the strength to fight off any disgruntled customers right now.” He folded his handkerchief and tucked it into his breast pocket. “Especially when we’re going to be missing two of us for the rest of the year.”

After the initial ship-wide sweep of souvenirs, Barry and Lup spent the afternoon sorting smaller items they’d be able to carry easily in their packs. They claimed a lot of the magic jewelry they had confirmed _ not  _ to be cursed, along with some tiny luck totems, pocket knives, playing cards, gloves, and more. At the same time, they planned what survival equipment they’d need to carry too, like healing potions, cooking kit, blankets, clothes, tanks for gas, and a pocket tent for night. 

Barry catalogued everything in a notebook while Lup plotted how to pack it all. They had brought everything down to sort next to the motorcycle so they could visualize it better. Lup had figured out that the racks on each side of the bike were meant for attaching saddlebags and was now strapping in a pack she had just filled.

“So if we keep the pan and the folding grill tucked behind here… Clothes and sleeping stuff in this bag. And the tanks stacked together on the other side…” She tapped her chin and circled the bike, strategizing. After a second, she stopped and swung a leg over the passenger seat, standing straddling it as best she could. “I’ll wear the big backpack while we ride, so whatever we can fit in there will be fine.”

Barry’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Oh? I was sure I was going to have to fight you for the driver’s seat,” he said, smirking.

Lup giggled. “No, it’s fine.” She leaned back on her arms dramatically and stuck out her chest a little. “Besides, I look cuter back here, anyway.”

He blushed like she had hoped he would, and he ducked behind his inventory list to hide it. “Uh, well, I’m thinking we could leave as early as tomorrow if you think we’ll be prepared enough.”

She climbed off the bike and snagged the list from him so she could skim it. “Why don’t we head in and find out how much food we can bring?”

As soon as the curtained doorway to the pantry came into view, Lup felt a squeeze of anxiety in her chest. Everyone was outside, busy sorting junk. They’d be alone in there again. She prayed the same thoughts weren’t going through his mind, but she felt there was a good chance they were.

Quick on her feet, Lup had an excuse to diffuse the situation before they even reached the door. “I’ll start picking out some canned foods and you take a look at the dry goods?” These sections were separated by a rack of shelves, she knew, so there would be no way they’d find themselves in the same spot as before- close, so close, right next to the potatoes…

“Sure,” Barry agreed, betraying no evidence that he knew what she was trying to do (but Lup knew he was good at faking that when he was trying to be polite).

There were no moments echoing the one that had happened almost a month before, though it was on Lup’s mind the entire time. They did their best to keep conversation going as long as they could, but inevitably as they worked they both fell silent. The reminder of that moment lingered in her head as she tallied cans, and she felt like her thoughts were so strong they could radiate out from her and into Barry’s brain _ , Remember when I tried to kiss you? Remember when you didn’t let me? Do you know that I cried? _

She knew they had made amends- in a way. And she was grateful. It didn’t erase the memory of the pain she had felt at the time. It was sharp, she remembered, like being stabbed.

The longer the task went on the more she circled that memory. As much as she willed herself to drop it, to focus on the task at hand and the adventure ahead of them, she felt her mood slowly spiraling. Barry hadn’t spoken for a while. Peering through the shelves, she could see his back turned to her, his expression a mystery. She was sure that he was thinking of it too. 

_ We’ve done this for so long, haven’t we? Desperately, fervently ignoring each other. _

Lup paused a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath, releasing it carefully, quietly. She reminded herself that this would be done soon. They were going to be adults who talk about this thing that existed between them. As soon as they were out there, on the road, relying on each other, sleeping in the same tent…

She lightly bopped her forehead with her notepad, attempting to reset her brain. Canned corn. Canned string beans.

“Canned corn or canned string beans?”

Barry jumped when she spoke. “Uh. Beans.”

\---

By the time the sun was setting, they had packed the motorcycle as if they were ready to go. And they were loaded up as full as they could be. When Lup climbed into the seat behind Barry, the whole frame was sunk several inches under the weight of them both, but seemed to be holding strong. He took her on a couple loops in front of the ship, drawing a delighted cackle out of her, then parked it for the night.

Settling in for bed, the whole crew marveled at how much space there was inside their home, now. Empty air under tables, on shelves, on walls, outlined in dust. Their scenery changed in only the most minute ways from year to year. This had a rejuvenating effect.

“Big day. You’re actually going to sleep now, right?” Lup’s speech was garbled around her toothbrush but Barry could decipher her warning tone just fine. 

“Heading to bed.” He smirked and gestured with his mug of chamomile. She nodded approvingly as he continued down the hall to his quarters, leaving her to finish her bathroom routine. Taako was sat on the toilet lid, clipping his toenails.

“Excited?” 

Lup spat toothpaste out in the sink. “Yeah. Gonna be interesting out there.”

“Okay, but are you excited about being alone with Barry for a year? I know you knew that’s what I meant but let me just spell it out for you since you ignored it.”

She took her time gargling, louder than necessary. Then she spit again and turned the sink on full blast. “Sorry, I can’t really-” She started scrubbing her face with soap.

Taako sighed and shook his head wearily. “But you _ are  _ going to talk to him about what you guys are gonna do about  _ this-”  _ he gestured in a vague circle at her- “which means I am soon going to be free of  _ this-” _ he gestured again- “as well?”

After a second, Lup finished rinsing her face and leaned her elbows on the porcelain, letting the water drip from her face. She watched the tips of a few strands of her hair fall into the sink and dance in the running water. “Yep.”

“So when you come back, you’re going to have a lot to catch me up about, right?” His tone had taken on a hint of genuine excitement. Lup imagined what that conversation might be like. What news would she and Barry bring back? She pictured her brother with his arms folded and that Taaco trademark smirk as he listened to her recount everything. _ If  _ it was good news, of course.

Taako handed her a towel and she patted her face dry. Lup turned and leaned her back against the sink, arms hanging by her sides. “I hope so. I hope it turns out okay.”

He held her gaze for a moment before reaching out to grab her fingers and wiggle her arms like some kind of silly dance. Once she had smiled sufficiently, he stood and opened the door for her. “I know it will be fine. Now I have to pee.”

She started to head for her room. “Good night.”

“Oatmeal for breakfast,” he called after her.

“Thankies,” she said, and he closed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of the magical items described in this chapter were provided courtesy of donjon’s 5e generator at https://donjon.bin.sh/!
> 
> Thanks for your lovely comments, guys! And thanks for your patience! Life is busy right now! But writing blupjeans fic is always a welcome break.


	4. Chapter 4

The crew sent Barry and Lup off with a round of hugs and extra snacks for the road. Lup had their crude map in a jacket pocket and the rising sun was enough to assure them of their bearings. They donned goggles and tied handkerchiefs around their faces to protect from flying sand, and they were off. 

A short time after their departure, the second herald of every cycling year made its appearance- the sky flashed black above them and billions of white eyes, scattered far beyond the horizon, blinked wildly at the land below. The ghastly spectacle was gone in an instant, but Barry and Lup were quick to throw up their middle fingers and curse at it bitterly. They knew the rest of the crew back on the ship were doing the same. Unlike the appearance of the Light, there was no useful information that could be gleaned from the arrival of the Hunger’s scouts; only that they were now being observed from the ethereal plane. But the Hunger wouldn’t be able to touch this world until it- he- reached them at the end of the year. 

Nothing could be done about it, but they could tell it to fuck off, for the sake of morale.

They weren’t entirely sure what their goal was for the day- to keep an eye out for any settlements or vehicles, yes, but there was no plan for what they would do after that. The local traders Magnus had met had warned him of marauding gangs and those words were present in their minds. It wasn’t long before they had found a travel-worn road on more solid ground, and not long after they began following it, they lost sight of the Starblaster over the distant dunes. 

Conversation over the roaring engine was mostly impossible, and after a while the sound became a buzz of white noise as Lup became accustomed to it. She passed the time by watching their surroundings glide by. On one side, mostly flatlands disappearing into bright nothingness, on the other, dunes, and far, far off in front of them, craggy mountains barely peeking over the horizon. The hours seemed to pass slowly, but Lup found her spot on the bike was surprisingly cozy as she leaned against Barry’s back, her hands placed carefully but comfortably on his sides.

Eventually, through a barely-discernible discussion yelled over Barry’s shoulder, they decided to stop for lunch. 

“How’s the driver’s seat so far?” Lup asked him as she extracted their food from her overstuffed backpack.

Barry was in the middle of an especially intense stretch. “A bit stiff,” he grunted. He removed his goggles and pulled down his handkerchief. “Picked up some hitchhikers,” he said, holding his goggles out for Lup to see. A spatter of bugs were smeared across the lenses, eliciting a grimace from Lup.

_ “Please  _ wash your hands after you wipe those off,” she warned, and held their sandwiches a safe distance away from him. 

He chuckled. “At least they’re not in my teeth.”

“Gross.”

A quick _ Prestidigation  _ and their hands and gear were clean from the dust and the remains of flying insects. The sun was high above them now and it felt nice to remove their coats and feel the breeze on their skin for a brief while. Lunch wasn’t particularly filling, and Lup still felt thirsty after drinking her ration of water for the hour. Running out wasn’t a huge concern yet- in an emergency they had components for conjuring food and water to sustain them. But they were trying to be careful with their spell slots while there were so many unknowns in this world. And gas? There was no spell to refuel a motorcycle. In that area they were entirely dependent on finding people willing to do business with them. 

So where was everybody? Magnus had bumped into that camp, but camps can pack up and move. But how far, how fast? Was this plane really so sparsely populated that they were just extremely lucky to run into the only intelligent beings in the region? After a half day of travel in one direction, it was just empty desert on all sides, as far as the eye could see. Already, she was worried that, for all their preparation, someday soon they might not have the resources to survive out here.

“Hey, so we still haven’t seen… _ anything  _ yet.”

Barry took a second to swallow the last bite of his sandwich. “Yeah,” he said. His tone wasn’t hopeful either.

“We’ve only been out for about five hours but these tanks will be empty after a few days. And if we don’t find a place to fill up, we’ll be stuck, and at that point we can’t just walk back.”

“I know.” He tapped his canteen idly. “Worst case scenario, if we get stranded, we can just make a more permanent camp. Maybe hope to flag down a traveler for trade. But even if we signaled the ship, who knows if they’d have the resources to make it here and back.”

Lup shrugged. “I guess we’d just live in the desert then.”

Barry shook his head and wiped the crumbs from his hands. “Well. I don’t think we should give up just yet. This road has to lead somewhere, right?”

“True. I guess you can’t really trust what the horizon looks like in a desert, huh?”

“Wouldn’t it suck if we saw an oasis in the distance and it turned out to be a mirage?” 

“That’s the last thing I need out here.” She wiped her forehead with her handkerchief. It wasn’t going to be pleasant putting her jacket back on, but getting pelted with rocks and sand for the next several hours would be worse. “Okay. Should we continue on?”

On this leg of the trip, the only change in their landscape was a point at which the road suddenly forked, prompting Barry to slow to a stop and idle. They observed that one branch seemed to take them back toward the dunes, and after a short discussion, they elected to continue in the slightly more western direction. The also took it as a positive sign that this road seemed a little more worn from use.

After another short break, and a couple more hours of riding, the sun began to set. Almost immediately the air took on a brisk chill. They pulled off about 500 feet away from the road, hoping they were out of the way enough to not attract attention from other potential travelers. After unloading what they needed for the night, they made a small fire to heat up dinner, hoping to take some time to plan for the next day and review their map- but the temperature was dropping fast, and it kept dropping, and no matter how close to the fire they sat, it wasn’t warm enough to stay outside.

The tent was a dimensional pocket, meaning on the outside, it looked barely big enough for a dwarf, but on the inside, it fit both their bedrolls easily. It came with rules of course, like most magic items. It only held items that you brought inside with you, so you couldn’t use it like an extra bag. If you forgot something inside when the last person crawled out, the tent would spit it out after you. You also couldn’t pick up the tent with a person inside, so no pocket passengers. But the interior of the tent was warm, since it existed in another dimension, and it would be comfortable for sleeping on a frigid desert night.

Lup crawled in first, and Barry was kicking dirt over the lingering flames of their campfire when he froze and called for her. She stuck her head out between the flaps. “What?” she said.

Barry crouched next to her and pointed towards the road. A low rumble was growing, rolling over itself like waves of thunder, increasing in volume as it grew closer. There was another noise that came into focus then- something that sounded like howling. And not any sound made by an animal- like _ people  _ howling. The two of them peered into the desert, and finally they could see it. Approaching over a hill, backlit against the last vestiges of dusklight was a caravan of vehicles. The three largest were each crowned with a wild mane of open flame.

“What on earth,” Barry murmured, but fell silent again as they continued watching.

“Barry?” Lup realized she was whispering. “Can you make us invisible?” 

He nodded and, without leaving his spot next to her, cast a ward around their campsite.

As the caravan careened down the road and past them, Lup could see several smaller vehicles, ones that were sleeker but obviously altered; strange, Frankenstein creations sewn together from many other cars. But she could also see that these were adorned with gleaming metal attachments. She thought she could identify harpoon gun mounts on some of them, and metal spikes on others, and on some,a secondary cockpit on the roof, manned by people holding weapons. Battlewagons, she knew without a doubt. But not the kind made for sport. A swarm of motorcycles buzzed ahead and behind the train. The people riding them hooted and screamed. Barry and Lup jumped when a series of _ bang bang bangs  _ rang out as someone discharged their weapon into the sky.

She thought she could see that these vehicles were painted haphazardly with wet handprints and smeared words of warning. She thought that she could see they were decorated with humanoid skulls.

Lup and Barry watched after them long after they had disappeared into the night. Then they double checked their wards and sealed themselves inside the tent. Lup kept willing herself to sleep, but her ears stayed sharp, pricked for any signal of the caravan’s return. She stayed like that for what felt like over an hour, but the night stayed silent. She had at least expected to hear Barry’s deep, steady breathing as he fell asleep next to her, hoped it would give her some comfort so she could finally drift off, but he was quiet. She knew he was awake, listening, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I did too much research into classes I’ve never played, trying to figure out how on earth Lup and Barry would be able to conjure emergency food to eat in the desert. I thought of loopholes where they could use a cleric spell because Merle put in a good word with Pan, I considered that Barry could have a Ranger level and he brought mistletoe he could transmute into Goodberries, but in the end I think I’m gonna go off of the precedent set by Taako in The Stolen Century who can conjure food Because Justin Said So. So I’m gonna say that Barry and Lup are just so good at wizardry that they can make food appear. Maybe they can transmute rocks into food. Lup once invented a self-replicating $15 dollar bill, guys. Please join me in enthusiastically hand-waving this plot obstacle.


	5. Chapter 5

Lup and Barry had made this kind of trip before, a long, long time ago. Cycle 3 or 4, probably. It was a world quite the opposite of this one- verdant and rainy, mountainous and sparkling with rivers and lakes. The ship was needed as a home base for the busy crew but the Light still had to be pursued. Davenport had decided it was time for Lup and Taako, still connected at the hip, to spend some time apart and learn how to play with others. He did this by ordering Lup and Barry to load up their packs and take a hike across the mountains; a “team-building exercise,” he called it. 

What a bizarre thing it was, now, for Lup to look back on a time when she didn’t know Barry that well. When she thought he was stuffy, when she interpreted his antisocial habits as disinterest. When the ink on her IPRE admission form was barely dry and she expected him to smirk at the absence of framed degrees above her desk. It was a pleasant surprise when she and Taako managed to coax him out of the lab to meet the mongoose family in Cycle 1, and it was fun to share his curiosity as they decoded the animal language together. As they worked together for the next few years, she learned to decode him too. But those months on their mountain hike were when she truly started to _ know  _ Barry, and she let him know her too. There were rainy days spent under a tarp when he told her about his childhood on the family farm, his deep dive into academia when his mother died, his years navigating young adulthood alone. There were long walks in the sun, following burbling creeks, when Lup talked about nights in strange orphanages and the treasured few years spent in her aunt’s home- about sewing her own dresses and choosing her adult name much earlier than was traditional. They philosophized about the intersections of magic and science and how beautiful and dangerous it could be. She started to feel understood and uniquely safe with him, and wondered if the working relationship she had with Barry would turn into something quite different than the ones she had with the rest of the crew.

That was the first year Lup died. They found the Light in the possession of a band of elves overtaken by the Thrall of it, though back then they weren’t calling it that, yet. Back then, they also didn’t know that the Light can draw the darkness out of people who have darkness in them already. Barry and Lup scarcely had the chance to explain why they needed it before they were met with outrage. 

They _ almost  _ fought their way out. The two of them made it into the woods before Lup collapsed. Her memory of that cycle got hazy at that point. She remembered a pain in her side and her hand coming away from her body smeared in black blood. Barry panicking over her as she lay in the leaves, shakily fanning through pages in his spellbook, muttering something about poison and cursed blades. She had trouble keeping her eyes open at the end, but she had the impression that Barry was holding her, wrapping his robe around her to keep her warm, though she was too numb to feel cold.

Lup turned that thought over in her head as she settled into the motorcycle’s passenger seat behind Barry. They were refueled and fed and ready to find out what their second day held in store. 

“Hey Barry?” 

“Yeah,” he said, adjusting his goggles over his glasses.

“That cycle the first time I died, you got the Light, didn’t you?”

Barry was quiet for a brief moment until the goggles were positioned to his liking. “Yeah, I did.”

The next cycle, when she was back, he hadn’t felt like talking about it much. She heard his story secondhand from Lucretia. Lup remembered Barry was quiet around her, but not cold. “Did you come back later? Or just bust in there commando-style and take it?” she asked. “What happened after I was gone?”

Now he was pulling on his gloves, collecting his words in that way that he did. “Well, I buried you. And I sat there for a bit and thought about stuff. And I knew that if I went back, Taako would probably kill me, so might as well get the Light first.”

“Come on.” She poked him in the side.

He shrugged and Lup wished she could see his face. “I mean, I had to make the whole thing worth it, right? I figured I was probably going to die, too, but at least _ trying  _ was more a net positive than if I had just gone home.”

“And _ then  _ you busted in commando-style and killed everyone.”

“I snuck in at night and cast Sleep on all the guards. And then I grabbed the Light and Blinked out. And... then I went home.”

It had taken them about two months to arrive at that camp. Lup remembered everything he had confessed to her about his loneliness, and then, painfully, she pictured Barry taking that long, picturesque hike through the wilds, this time without her. She thought about leaning forward and hugging him, but her natural impulse to joke outpaced her. “Bet it was a pretty relaxing trip without me talking your ear off.”

“Yeah, and I had twice the food,” he said, and the engine roared to life.

Hearing the grin in his voice, Lup poked him again, though this one was more of a _ jab.  _

Neither of them were dying this year, she promised herself. They were too strong, now. 

The plan today was to follow this road that they had found and hope it led somewhere useful. They had agreed to make sure to keep an eye out for signs of that caravan from last night, and if needed, look for a different route.

The landscape was no longer barren, flatlands. They were quickly approaching rocky hills and craggy, red plateaus. Sometimes, Lup thought she could see dust clouds in the distance, and not the kind that looked blown up by the wind- it looked like dust stirred by the wheels of other vehicles. They had been driving only a couple hours before Lup started actively looking for signs of civilization.  _ Something  _ had to be close. There were too many tracks in the dirt, too many birds in the sky for there to be nothing near. 

And then, Barry skidded to a stop. “Look,” Barry shouted over the motor. He pointed just ahead of them.

Just a few yards ahead, the road made a sharp turn, and as Lup squinted in the sun, she could see why. They were at a cliff, and down over the edge was a deep ravine. They had barely noticed it from a distance; they had only been able to see _ across  _ it, where the desert continued on the other side. They rolled forward close enough to look down.

“Holy shit,” Lup exclaimed.

Hidden in the shade of the canyon was a bustling town.

“You think they have a decent brunch scene here?” Barry asked.

“Let’s find out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to the fic I false-started about a year ago, now deleted. It was going to be about Lup’s memory here, the trip where she and Barry went adventuring in the wilds and grew closer in the beginning of their friendship. About a chapter in I realized that I wanted to write this fic too, which had a premise that was really too similar… So I scrapped it in favor of this one. But it’s still an important part in the history of their relationship (in my headcanon), so it gets to make an appearance. :)
> 
> I wish I had the time to make these chapters longer but I only really get to write on the weekends so I basically just have to post what I can write in one sitting... I would have continued a bit for this one but I think this was the best stopping point before I would have run out of time. Thanks for reading and commenting, guys! It really does make me feel motivated to keep it up!


	6. Chapter 6

Following the worn path, they were able to find a road winding gradually down into the ravine. Cars, trucks, and bikes were parked in a haphazard jumble, some idling, others guarded by their owners, others with their engines exposed and being repaired. In another section, horses and mules and oxen were tied up and grazing from crates of feed, wagons parked nearby. Beyond the lot stretched rows of tents and merchant stands, crowded with people doing business.

Some of the folks attending their parked vehicles were eyeing them as they arrived. “I don’t like the idea of leaving all our belongings just out in the open with the bike here,” Lup said. 

“Well, should we take turns scouting it out?” Barry suggested. “I mean, we can’t ride it into the marketplace.”

“Why not? There’s enough room.”

“It’d be kinda rude.”

“It’d be a power move.”

Barry shook his head. “Remember that we _ are  _ new to this place and don’t exactly know how things work here.”

“Even more reason.” She grinned impishly.

He sighed and pulled off his goggles. “You do know more about power moves than I do.”

“I’m electing to make a power move!” Lup declared, and Barry carefully nudged the accelerator so that they rolled past the lot and puttered into town.

They rolled the bike down the main thoroughfare, studying the people, picking out conversations, keeping an eye out for unusual displays of etiquette that would be useful. The crew had had a lot of practice assimilating on the spot. Many a harsh lesson in past planes had taught them how to follow a lead. Some worlds had customs completely inscrutable to them, but fortunately, the practices in trade and negotiation here didn’t seem so different from back home. Eventually, Lup patted Barry’s arm to get him to stop and she hopped off to look at a table of wares.

The booth was manned by a halfling with wild hair partially tamed into a few braids. His clothes had been patched many times over and were tinted gray with old dirt, but it seemed that most people here were dressed similarly. 

“You know there’s an area over there where you can leave that,” he said, gesturing to the idling bike and pointing back towards the entrance.

“Would you trust this bunch to respect your property here if you left this table unattended?” Lup responded.

He threw up his hands in a shrug. “There’s folks you can pay to guard it.”

“I don’t trust them either.”

“Fair enough. Could ya turn it off while we’re doing business, though?”

“Sure. I’ll tell my muscle over here-” Lup turned to gesture at Barry, who was grinning wryly at the nickname. He shut off the engine.

Lup began scanning the items on the table and the halfling launched into a running commentary of everything she looked at. “Ya need luck charms? That one’s especially good for elves. A little high end, however. Over here we got utilities. Pliers, scissors, I got a full set of wrenches for any size. Don’t let yourself get caught in the Waste without ‘em.” He followed her gaze down the length of the table and stood on his chair so he could point at a nondescript jug. “Oh this! This is a smart purchase for bikers such as yourself. When was the last time you changed your oil?”

Lup picked up the jug. “This is empty.” 

“I’ll give you that, _ but  _ it’s perfect for transporting oil. You gotta change that oil frequently, for the health of your vehicle.”

She set it down. “I suppose that’s true.” She spared a second to wonder how old the oil in the bike was. Then she noticed several tubes of rolled paper propped behind him. “Do you have a map of the area?”

The halfling looked behind him, and then back at Lup. “Yeah, a couple. You guys are new in town?”

It was always a bit of a dilemma, the first time a local asked where they were from. Sometimes it made sense to tell the truth, especially when the Light of Creation was at stake, but mostly it spared them a lot of risk to lie. She also suspected this merchant was testing to find out how savvy she was. It wasn’t hard to pick out his type- she and Taako had learned a lot of the same techniques during their street urchin days. There was more money to be made off of schmucks.

“It’s been a while since I was last here. Some of the roads have changed.”

“Yeah, yeah. And you never know what gangs have taken over the territories and such.” He hopped down from the chair and grabbed a scroll. “Well, show me what you got and we can come to a deal,” he said as he spread the paper open in front of her.

Lup picked up the map and backed a few steps towards Barry, ignoring a mild protest from the merchant, and showed him. Comparing it to her memory of the ship’s flyover, generally the map looked like it was plotted accurately enough, though it was obviously handmade. Several roads and names were scribbled out and new ones were added in. Small illustrations dotted certain areas, things like skulls, hazardous chemical symbols, water droplets, oil refineries, something that looked like some kind of beast she had never seen before. The parchment was heavily creased and the edges were browned and flecked with small tears. But it was clear that the landscape of this region was massive and dangerous to traverse. A large, blank area filled a majority of the map and she circled it with a finger. They both recognized it as the desert they had just come from and sure enough, it was labeled, _ The Waste. _

“This is current? It looks old,” Barry asked the halfling. 

“It’s seen some wear because somebody got a lot of use out of it, so I’d take that to mean it’s reliable, wouldn’t you?” he replied, holding out a hand and flicking his fingers, prompting Lup to bring it back to the table. “A map is the most important thing a traveler can own, especially in these parts, ya know?”

She could tell this thing was about to become very expensive. Lup began to unfasten one of their satchels, Barry watching curiously. “I’m gonna start with the non-magic stuff and see where he goes,” she muttered. He lifted his eyebrows in an expression that communicated he was glad she was dealing with this and not him.

Lup showed the halfling a pocketknife. “I think this will be an easy trade,” she said, shooting for just the right combination of authority and indifference. 

The merchant started chuckling and shook his head. He nudged the pocketknife towards her. “I think we have different ideas. What else?”

Coolly, she took it back and thought for a moment. “I’ve got an emerald figurine, very good condition.”

“Does it do anything?”

“Does it do-? No, but it’s pure emerald, you can look-”

“I don’t care if it’s pretty, I want something useful.” He looked down at her hand and pointed at her Ring of Alter Self. “What about that? I see it’s got runes on it.”

Lup put her hand in her pocket. “Not for trade. I have other magic jewelry.”

“Let’s see it.”

Lup approached the bike again, breathing a discreet but deep sigh as she rummaged in the satchel. Barry eyed her but stayed quiet.

“Here,” she said, bringing over a pendant on a chain and a jeweled wrist cuff. “This one produces a light in a ten foot radius and the cuff helps you lift heavy melee weaponry if it’s above your grade.”

“Hmm.” He turned the items over and held them close to his eye. “We’re getting close. Just for my curiosity though, tell me about the ring? I just wanna know.”

Lup’s patience was tensing like an elastic band, but Barry’s voice behind her was grounding.

“Listen, buddy, if you’re gonna be annoying there’s a hundred other folks here we can do business with instead,” he called.

“Alright, alright.” The merchant lifted his hands in defeat and Lup folded her arms, clearly ready for this transaction to be done. “I’ll take these two. And I’ll take that pocketknife too; seems like then it should be enough.” 

She rolled her eyes but plunked the knife on the table as he rolled up the map. He handed it over and Lup unrolled it so she could fold it along the old creases. 

“You two have a wonderful day. I know that map will prove to be very useful,” the halfling said.

“I’m sure. Thank you.” Lup returned to the bike and found a spot for the map in an outer pocket. 

“We should have made him throw in that empty jug too,” Barry said, and she scoffed lightly. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. Let’s see what else they’ve got here,” she said. 

\---

The marketplace was a great education in figuring out what kind of world they had landed in. Everyone here, from the beggars kneeling on the ground to the merchants lounging in the shade of the largest tents, were dusted with dirt. All clothing were either in tatters or were formally tattered- now sewn back together. Every layer of cloth was a different style or material, patched with yet another. The technology seen here was simple, mostly powered by gears or gas, and all machinery looked just as ramshackle as the people. Some vendors peddled tables and tables of broken up metal junk, and they had no shortage of customers. Nothing here was new. It was pretty clear, Lup thought, that there was once a period when this world had flourished. But that prosperity had been lost since. This world now survived on the scraps.

A beggar reached up to them as they walked the bike by. “Water?”

Barry looked at Lup, then picked up his canteen. He rattled it by his ear to hear it slosh inside.

“Just a little bit, not much,” the frail woman said, holding up a tin bowl.

Lup gave a nod. Barry approached the woman and emptied the canteen into her bowl. They could make more later.

“Bless you. Safe road for you,” she said.

_ Safe road for you.  _ Lup logged that phrase in her memory. They continued on their path, Lup watching over her shoulder as the woman gulped the water down.

They eventually reached a juncture in the thoroughfare that was too crowded to wheel the bike through. Barry volunteered to hang back with the bike so Lup could scout ahead. It wasn’t long before she figured out why this corner of the market was so packed with people. Peering over the throng, she spotted a large tent and a sign reading _ Healer. _

Dozens of people pressed into each other, urging each other forward and holding up various items, shouting for attention. She surmised that this crowd was meant to be a jumbled queue and skirted the outside of it until she got closer to the sign. Posted under it was a price menu of sorts. 

  * _High priority - magic items, autos, guns_
  * Middle priority - livestock, water, gas
  * Low priority - Etcetera

_ I got a fucking map for the same price as high priority healthcare,  _ Lup realized with a flash of rage.

A human man appeared in the open flap of the tent and waved a pair of people inside. The empty gap they left immediately filled in. Lup squinted to see into the tent but couldn’t get a good look.

A half-orc was standing guard next to doorway. Lup waved at him. 

He gave her the smallest glance before returning his gaze to the crowd. “What have you got?”

She raised her voice to be heard over the general din. “Uh, just some questions.”

“Can’t answer much.”

“Is your healer a cleric?”

“What?”

“Do they do magic?”

The guard looked at her with vague alarm. “Magic? No. No, you won’t find that kind of thing here.”

No healing magic here. Did that mean in this tent? In this marketplace? In this region of the world?

“What do they have here? Herbs? Potions?”

“Whatever they happen to have. Do you need healing?”

“Not yet. Just wondering what kind of chances I’ll have if I do.” Lup surveyed the crowd again. Some people were leaning on the arm of another, some were standing still, listlessly, waiting. Others were lying in cots or hammocks held up by companions. A lot of people needed help here. She imagined what they could have done if they had brought Merle, but soon figured they would never be allowed to leave if they had.

Healing magic was one of Lup’s great frustrations. She had a few Bard levels but was never able to get a handle on healing spells. Throughout her life, people had told her, over and over, that every caster has their natural aptitudes, that no one person is proficient in every aspect of magic. But for someone who _ was  _ pretty damn good at _ almost  _ all aspects of magic, it was a bit of a sore point. Barry, jack of all trades, master of none, was a decent healer when Merle wasn’t available. In a pinch, Lup could muster enough magic to soothe a sprained ankle. The only person she knew who was just as bad was Taako.

“Do you know where the nearest magic healer is?” she asked.

The guard shot her an annoyed glare. “Quit wasting my time.”

Lup took that as her cue to move on.

She ambled past more booths selling junk, another selling animals, an auction that appeared to be selling services (or maybe people?), and a structure that appeared to be a restaurant specializing in flavored water. Someone stopped her and offered her a chicken in a cage. _ “Very clean! Beautiful!”  _ Lup thought they were referring to the bird at first, but then noticed they were pointing at her jacket. She politely turned the offer down. The shadow of the cliffs above had almost fully covered the canyon by the time Lup started to look for Barry again. She paused to buy a couple small tanks of gas on the way.

He was sitting, leaned against a pole, and waved as she approached. It looked like he might have been dozing a bit before.

“Sorry that took so long. This place is bigger than I thought,” she said, and held up the canisters. “Didn’t really find anything else we might need yet. Or have room for.”

“I couldn’t think of anything either,” he said, standing up and dusting off his jeans. “Want to plan our next move?”

They found a quiet nook in the shade to open their map. Lup briefed him on everything she saw on her walk. “Let me run an idea by you: before we go, we steal back our magic shit from that guy who sold us the map because we got duped and my pride is deeply wounded.”

Barry patted her arm. “How about this: we might need to stop here on the way back and probably shouldn’t make any enemies to worry about running into again.” 

She sighed, long and dramatic. “You know I hate cutting my losses.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Lup.”

They found a road on the map that would take them south, back on their route. If this thing was indeed accurate, it would eventually bring them near a cluster of towns for resupply. They began securing their belongings on the bike.

Barry took out his canteen. “I should fill this up before we get on the road.” He was about to reach into his coat for his wand when Lup grabbed his wrist.

“Wait.”

He waited.

“I think… Maybe we shouldn’t do that here. Where people can see,” she said.

He slowly lowered his hand. “Okay. You think so?”

Lup remembered the look the half-orc man gave her when she asked if their healer could do magic. Something that was half-disbelief, half-hostility.

“I just have a feeling.”

The sun was setting as their bike made the final climb out of the canyon. A short ride later they pulled off the road to set up their tent and climb inside.

“Long day,” Barry remarked idly as he got cozy in his sleeping bag.

“Yup,” Lup said, doing the same. They had Prestidigitated the dirt and sweat from their clothes before going to bed but Lup was still fantasizing about the next chance she’d get to take a real shower. “Lights out?” 

“Go ahead,” Barry replied, and she dismissed the ball of light she’d conjured to float above them.

She rolled onto her side to look at him next to her. Humans were cute in the dark. They couldn’t see anything in front of them so they had to just stare, eyes wide, at nothing. Barry seemed to study the ceiling for a moment before turning his gaze in her direction. Was he trying to look at her?

“Long day tomorrow too,” Lup whispered.

“Lot of driving,” he mumbled.

“Sleep tight.”

“You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming back after I haven't updated in about two months! Life has been busy but now it's less so! It feels real good to be writing again. Thank you as well for all the comments you've left! They genuinely do inspire me to keep writing.
> 
> Hmm I’ve seen a couple posts recently speculating that you can pinpoint the region and time period where a fic was written by whether or not affordable healthcare is a plot point and I oop-!


	7. Chapter 7

A month in the Wastes had earned Lup the barest rhythm to which she could set her daily routine. 

Morning:

Open eyes, gauge the time by the faint glow through the canvas. Kick off covers because it’s already hot. Listen to Barry snore. Roll over, study him furtively. First, the creases at the corners of his eyes. Then, his long eyelashes. Lastly, his mussed hair, flecked with gray. Roll away when he stirs and wakes up.

Barry, a gentleman, takes his bag outside to change while Lup changes in the tent. No baths, there hasn’t been enough water anywhere. Prestidigitation takes care of smells and dirt, but leaves her feeling stale. Yell through tent flap to make sure Barry is decent. Open flap, find boots, shake out sand and scorpions. See Barry gazing out across the dunes. Every morning the sky is the same color as his eyes.

Breakfast:

Use a cantrip to clean a pan, another to light a fire. Burn a spell conjuring something that looks like real eggs and ham. Fry them until they taste like real eggs and ham. Barry burns a spell conjuring water to boil. Brew real coffee from the beans they traded for almost a month ago. Preemptively mourn the loss of the coffee when it runs out. Plan the day’s ride.

The road:

The bike is simultaneously overloaded and understocked most of the time. Get frustrated while tying down cumbersome cargo. Change which pockets certain items are kept. Fret that something fell out until finding it again. Get settled into the seat. Place hands on Barry’s sides. Feel the sting of sand grains glance off her face but appreciate cool wind threading through her hair. Watch the landscape go by until an illusion takes hold that the craggy horizon is just floating past like on the current of a river.

Bathroom break. Count spells. Check map. Lunch. Tease Barry until he pretends to get mad. 

People:

Sometimes the road brings them to a caravan, or a camp. Study from a distance. Get a sense of numbers, of body language, armaments. Approach cautiously. Trade, get directions, gather intel. Hear stories about another raid on another community. Get asked for news in turn. Give vague answers. “We came from up north.”

Night:

Before it gets too cold, find a spot off the road and pitch the tent. Light a fire, make food, rest. Tailbone is sore from the seat. Count spells. Burn another scaring off an animal. Go inside when it drops to freezing. Put boots outside. One final spell to clean their bodies. 

Either go to sleep right away or spend another hour, or two hours, talking. About the whereabouts of the Light, about how long the journey was still. Notice the progressively gruffer texture of Barry’s voice as he gets sleepier. Then bid each other goodnight, get comfy. Listen to the sounds outside the tent, then try not to listen to the sounds outside the tent. Listen to Barry snore. Think about how it would be so cozy to close the 12-inch gap between their sleeping bags. How it would be so warm with his breath on the back of her neck.

Rehearse the words she wants to tell him. Feel brave. Then feel anxious. Put the words away. Fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has been soooo long guys! Life is like a hurricane. This one isn't very long since I still haven't had the chance to write a full chapter but I really wanted to get something out there! Just letting you know that I still do appreciate that you're reading and that I do intend on continuing this fic. :) Thank you <3


	8. Chapter 8

“What do you think this thing is supposed to be?” Lup asked. She held out the open map for him to see.

Floating in an expanse of empty desert was a tiny drawing of a body of water surrounded by trees. It was no bigger than her thumbnail.

He scooted closer and shaded his eyes from the noon sunlight. “Maybe a camp?” Barry said.

“Looks more like an oasis.”

“A real-life, stereotypical, desert oasis,” Barry mused, and took a bite of his sandwich.

“It’s not far off our route. That could be a good stop to rest. Cool water, tree shade, greenery?” She could live there for the rest of the year, she imagined.

“Sure, we can keep an eye out.” 

“You don’t think it’s real?”

Barry chewed for a moment and shrugged. He held out a hand and presented the cracked, dirt landscape to her. “I mean, I don’t know. But it won’t be weeks until we get down there anyway.”

“Well, we can keep an eye out.”

“Sure.”

Lup finished marking the map with the day’s progress so far and folded it up. On the horizon was a hulking metal wreck, the carcass of some ancient machine whose purpose she would probably never learn. They had seen quite a few ruins like it on their journey, but none as colossal as this. It was sketched and labeled clearly on the map, so she had easily determined their current position. Out here, where everything looked the same for days on end, it was comforting to find a landmark where and when they planned to find it. She was a pretty decent navigator, she thought.

The next stop was a small town they expected to reach before sunset. They’d come upon a few camps and traveling parties since they left the canyon market, but nothing else resembling an organized settlement. They were banking on the trade to be bustling and the people to be hospitable.

After another hour driving, Lup heard a quiet rumble building over the noise of the bike’s engine. “What is that?” Barry called over his shoulder.

Lup twisted and surveyed the road. Back and to her right: dust clouds rising. Sunlight glinting off metal, obscuring the shape of whatever approached.

She pulled her handkerchief down, off her mouth. “Wagons. A lot of them,” she replied.

“How many?”

They’d passed within sight of other vehicles, plenty of times. But the dust rising behind them now was billowing higher then they were used to. This didn’t look like a convoy traveling at a steady pace, but rather a train building speed.

“I can’t tell, but I think they’re gaining.”

“Fuck.”

“Should we head east and get out of their way?”

Instead of answering, Barry pulled left and gunned the throttle, taking them to top speed. Lup kept her eyes trained on the growing cloud. It was subtle at first, but soon she could definitely tell- it had changed directions, and was following them.

“They’re still coming right at us, just keep going,” she said.

“God dammit!”

“It’s fine, keep going,” she urged. “I’ll watch them.”

What could be done in the minutes before they caught up to them? There were no hiding places on the empty plain. The map was fresh in her head and she knew there was nothing around for hours. Barry veered right again to take them back on a southern path. An unpredictable, zig-zagging path was harder to follow and their best bet. But not for long.

They were close enough now that Lup could see several forms kiting off from the mass, making a wider swooping path towards them. “Some of them are coming around to cut us off on the right.” 

“I’m going as fast as I can, Lup.”

“Good, keep going.” 

The screaming of the bikes’ engines began to rise over the rumble. And then, another noise- howling. People howling.

They were in full view now. How were they so fast? Their speed was climbing exponentially. Lup tucked her wand down her sleeve and gripped it. “They’re here.”

“What’s the plan-” Barry began to shout, but he was cut off by a loud _ bang! _ , and then more noise, shouting, guns blasting into the sky, howling, all whipping into a fervor.

Before they knew it, they found themselves positioned in the middle of a bobby-pin formation of vehicles; one leg on their left, the other on their right. She counted about a dozen in total. Now Lup recognized the paint and blood smeared across the metal hull of the car closest beside them. Strung-up skulls rattled on the hood of the next. This was certainly the train of battlewagons they had glimpsed their first night camping.

Their occupants hung out windows and shouted at them, cackling, shooting at the dirt behind the bike’s tires. What were they waiting for? Why taunt them when they were such an easy kill? This seemed like just a sick thrill for them. Soon Barry and Lup realized that several motorcycles had zoomed ahead to close the gap in front of them. They were fully surrounded.

Lup leaned close and spoke into Barry’s ear. “If we fire they’ll take us out immediately.”

“Fuckfuckfuck _ fuck  _ well what else have we got?” he said.

One rider to their right ducked inside the wagon, then reappeared in the open window and lobbed something at them. It sparkled as it arced through the air. Lup screamed and pointed just in time for Barry to evade its trajectory, and it exploded in the dirt behind the bike. This seemed to be the cue for others to follow along, as small explosions began to light up around them.

Lup imagined her spellbook open in front of her. At this point, she knew the text front to back, familiar from decades and decades of study. She ran through her favorite spells first, but these mostly involved a lot of fire, and that wasn’t ideal for being enclosed in a ring of combustible machines. She could shape her own fire, but not theirs. 

Alphabetically, then, she decided. Luckily, there was one in the A’s that she thought might work fine.

“I’m gonna _ Arcane Gate  _ us out of here, to the right. Ready on my signal?”

“Alright!”

She waited for a pause between explosions.

“Go!” she yelled.

Barry made a severe right turn, taking them on a path that would have them smashing directly into the side of a battlewagon. Lup whipped her arm through the air. She caught the briefest sight of the horror in the driver’s eyes before a hole ripped open in the fabric of the space before her, revealing the open desert.

A whoosh of wind ruffled their hair and clothes as they passed through the portal, and some 500 feet away they landed, back on their original route south.

“Woof!” Barry exclaimed. Lup released the breath she had been holding. They could hear the ruckus coming from the caravan turn to sounds of outrage and confusion. Vehicles began to peel out of formation and turn back to chase them again.

“They’re still coming up behind.”

“If we can shake them we can go invisible,” Barry said, “but they could still follow our tracks.”

Lup was tallying her remaining spells when a rapid series of _ pop _ s rang out across the desert. She scarcely had time to place the noise as belonging to a mounted gun-

And then they were tipping, and the bike slid out from under them, and they were landing _ hard, _ and they were rolling, and dirt and blood were in her mouth-

There was a strange gap in Lup’s awareness. She felt like she was just waking up, but when she raised her head to get her bearings, the caravan of battlewagons was still barrelling towards them. That’s good that she hadn’t been knocked out, she thought. But she was so disoriented she could hardly think of what to do next. Her body hurt, so badly. The skin on one side of her face stung like she’d burnt it. And- Barry-

“Lup?” He was suddenly in her view, dropping to the ground to lean over her, eyes wild with panic. His face was scratched and his nose was bleeding, but his glasses seemed to have been protected by his goggles. “You’re okay- how- are you okay?”

“I’m- yeah.” She tried to prop herself up on an elbow, drawing her knees up to check if her legs were broken.

“Do you have your wand still?”

Wand. Sleeve. Lup stretched out her arm and felt it inside, snapped in two pieces. “Yes, got it.” She withdrew one half and shook the other onto the ground. It would still be usable.

“We need to _ Blink  _ out of here right now. Grab whatever you can.” She hooked an arm over his shoulder and he helped her to her feet. All their supplies were scattered across the ground- some were yards away- but the storm of wagons was nearly upon them. Their most essential gear was in the backpack still strapped to her body. They scrambled to pick up whatever was closest.

“Let’s head for the other side of that embankment.” Barry pointed at a small incline. “Keep out of sight when you reappear.”

“Okay,” she said, and they gave each other one last look, and they both vanished.

The first thing she saw in the Ethereal Plane were the Hunger’s scouts, but the little nondescript figures scattered immediately. The desert was now cast in a foggy gray color palette. Her ears felt muffled, like she was underwater. She couldn’t see Barry anymore but trusted he was on his way to their meetup spot, so she moved in that direction too. Time and space were weird here, and she didn’t think she’d ever get the hang of it, but before she knew it, she was there.

She dropped back into the Prime Material plane just after Barry did and the two of them flattened themselves on the ground immediately. “I’m gonna make us invisible,” he whispered.

“How many spells do you have left?”

“Enough.” He put a hand on her shoulder and they were cloaked.

Slowly, they crept up to the crest of the embankment and observed the scene they had left behind. The gang had brought their vehicles to a stop and people were getting out of them to study the wreckage of the motorcycle. Lup could tell they were attempting to follow their footprints and becoming increasingly baffled when they ended in the middle of open desert. After scanning the immediate area and coming up with nothing, they got to work picking up all the scattered equipment and hauling away the wrecked bike.

“Fuck,” Barry whispered.

“Fuck,” Lup agreed.

The two of them waited there until they had all cleared out and continued east. When the desert was silent again Lup rolled over onto her back and stretched out her aching limbs. Barry followed suit. He sighed a defeated sigh.

“We need to inventory,” Lup said.

“Yeah.” Barry vaguely waved his wand and cast a spell to mitigate the worst of their wounds. The sting on her face faded and she held a hand to her cheek. It was still rough to the touch, presumably from being scraped along the ground like cheese being grated. There were holes in the knees of Barry’s jeans but his skin was now scabbed rather than bleeding.

They both groaned as they sat up.

“Fuck. I can’t believe we lost the bike. And more! Fuck!” 

“We’re alive, Bar.”

“I know.” He sighed once more to calm himself. “Do you have the map? And the tent?”

Lup took off the backpack and checked the spots she always put them. “Yep. And the canteens.”

“Good, good...” He started unloading his pockets gathering up all the loose items he had dropped as he came out of Blink.

Most of their bargaining fodder was gone. Some other useful gear was missing too. But the biggest loss was the bike. Without it, they didn’t have much of a mission.

After accounting for the remains of their supplies, they sat down for one more moment of rest. After a short silence, Barry asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Maybe still feeling a little dazed,” she said. 

“Look at me?” He leaned close and studied her pupils. “Just want to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

“If I did, your spell probably got it,” she assured him, though she didn’t mind the attention.

He paused a moment, then reached up to brush a thumb across her burned cheek, feather-light. “How is this feeling?”

Lup found her voice faltering. “Stings a little,” she murmured. She swallowed. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” He seemed to take stock of the other scratches and bruises on her face, and then he pulled the backpack into his lap. He retrieved the canteen and handed it to her. “You should drink some water.”

She took the canteen from him and pulled him into a one-armed hug, and he held her for a short while. Concussion or no, it helped her feel a little more grounded. Then when she pulled back, she took a swig of water, wiped her mouth, and handed the canteen to him. 

“Your turn. We have a lot of walking ahead of us.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might name a few D&D spells every once in a while but don't look too closely at the rules... The McElroys bend things for story's sake so I get to as well. :)
> 
> Looks like our heroes have gotten themselves into a spot of trouble! How are they gonna get out of this one! 
> 
> And hey, if you commented.. I read it and it made me very happy. Thanks, guys. <3 Hope you're staying safe.


	9. Chapter 9

It was dusk. From beneath the horizon came the glow of the last rays of the sun, and the heat faded with it. The two had trudged for hours, stopping for only minutes at a time for rest. They discussed camping that night, but the idea that marauders could still be stalking the area made them hesitant to stop moving, despite the dropping temperature. The town on the map was so close, and their spell slots all but gone.

One last hill rose before them and when they reached the top, they finally saw it: tiny dots of firelight, and the gray silhouettes of structures arranged closely together. Lup and Barry groaned with relief and they let the slope of the hill carry them quickly forward. After the longest mile they had ever walked, they reached their destination.

Lup dismissed the cantrip they were using to light their way in the dark and put away her wand. A cobblestone wall reinforced with steel beams surrounded the settlement, and guards were posted atop.

“Hello!” “Hi!” The two shouted their greetings to the guards, who immediately stiffened and trained their guns on them.

“Stop right there,” the central figure commanded. Two huge floodlights switched on. One bathed them in white light while the other scanned the road behind them. They raised their empty hands.

“We’re just travelers in need of a place to spend the night,” called Lup, shielding her eyes with one raised hand.

“Why are you out here on foot?”

Barry answered, “We were robbed. They took our bike.”

The guard conferred with another briefly before speaking again. “Are we talking random miscreants or one of the big gangs?”

“Uh, a big gang, I guess.”

“Which one?”

Lup and Barry exchanged a clueless look. Lup responded, “They had a couple big rigs, maybe 4 or 5 bikes, some battlewagons. A mounted gun-”

“Were they howling?”

Lup blinked. “Um, yeah, actually, they were howling.”

She thought she heard him scoff. “Are you really trying to tell me you encountered The Jackals in the open desert and they let you walk away _ living? _ ”

Barry and Lup met each others’ eyes again. _ Hmm. _

“We saw them coming and hid,” Barry offered.

“Hid where?”

“Uh. We buried ourselves in the sand.”

There was another pause as the figures spoke to each other. After a moment came the sound of quiet laughter, and she could hear the smile in the guard’s voice when he said, “Well, you certainly look like it, don’t you.”

A sudden whistle pierced the air and Lup and Barry jumped as a green flare rocketed into the sky above the settlement. About 15 seconds later, they heard it echoed twice, and, swiveling their heads, they could see two more green flares rising in the distance, one from the left, the other from the right.

“Alright,” said the guard. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve brought any secret friends with you so we’re gonna let you in. Be ready to present any weapons on you.” He turned and waved behind him, and the front gate began to lift. As they approached the entrance, Lup could finally see the sign bolted above. It was a ragged sheet of white metal printed with a faded name: _ Airlines. _

Inside was an intermediate room, blocked off from the town by another gate. Several people in light armor appeared and told them to put their bags on a table. Two of the guards patted them down while a third, a young woman, laid out the remains of their possessions and inspected them. Lup’s mind raced, trying to think of anything she might find that would incriminate them as magic users. Fortunately, when their wands were discovered, they were immediately set aside, not even registering as anything but knick-knacks. She also remembered, with relief and sadness, that their spellbook was gone.

“We’ll keep your knives tonight,” said the woman, repacking the rest of their things. “Come by in the morning to pick them up on the way out.” Barry and Lup thanked her, shouldering their bags.

“Dinner’s about to start, but check by Town Hall and ask for Antlion. She’ll want to meet you. Just straight ahead.”

The inner gate opened for them and they proceeded through. Lup thought the idea of a freshly-cooked dinner sounded heavenly, but once she was inside, the smell of that freshly-cooked dinner had her salivating immediately. “Oh gods, can we skip Town Hall and go see if someone will give us food?”

Barry was inhaling deeply too, and then he was sighing. “Let’s meet this Antlion person real quick in case she needs to be the one to get us in.”

“I want to sit down so bad.”

“We’re almost there, we can do it,” he urged, and they stumbled forward past tents and curious townspeople. 

Town Hall was a strangely cylindrical, metal building, half sank into the dirt, patched and altered with newer sheets of metal and reinforced with stone. It looked like it had been here a very, very long time, much older than the village around it. It was only about as wide as two of Lup’s armspans, but several yards deep.

They stopped at the door and looked around uncertainly. Barry knocked. 

“Come in!” 

Barry opened the door and they peeked inside before taking a step forward. The room was lined with filing cabinets and shelves of books. Behind the counter, light spilled from another doorway. They heard shuffling sounds within.

“What do you need? I’m about to head to dinner.”

“Hello?” Lup called out. She approached the counter and leaned forward. “We were told to speak to Antlion?”

A woman appeared in the doorway. She was a middle-aged, half-elf with dark skin and gray dreadlocks. “Well, that would be me,” she said. “And you appear to be new around here.” She lifted a cloak off a hook on the wall and turned off a lantern before coming around to their side of the counter.

“Yes, we’re travelers. We got robbed on the road here and the guards were nice enough to let us in,” Lup said, jabbing a thumb back in the direction of the gate.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Glad we could be of help.” Antlion held out a hand to her. “I’m the town Elder.” After shaking Lup’s hand, she shook Barry’s. 

“I’m Lup.”

“Barry.”

“Lup, Barry, we’re happy to have you here in Airlines. As I said, dinner’s about to start, so if you don’t mind if we walk and talk-?” She gestured to the door as she shrugged the cloak over her shoulders.

The two of them acquiesced eagerly and followed her out and down the path. She walked with a slight limp but maintained an effortless brisk pace.

“You already met my daughter, Cedar, head of security, and her team. Have you been around anywhere else yet?” she asked.

“Not yet, we came straight to you,” Lup said.

“Well, right now we’re heading to the dining hall. Over on the southwest corner is the trading post. Southeast is Medical. Residential is the back half there.” She waved far ahead of them. “We’ll find you a spot to sleep tonight after you eat.”

They thanked her profusely.

“You’re lucky you found us, aren’t you?” she said. “A night out there without proper gear- if the cold doesn’t get you, the wildlife will. And I include the gangs as wildlife.”

“Well, we were planning on stopping here anyway; we were just planning to get here a lot sooner,” Barry said.

“Now, someone attacked you?”

“The Jackals, we were told.”

Antlion’s footsteps stuttered as she turned to face them, palm pressed to her chest.  _ “The Jackals? _ How are you alive?”

Lup cast a sidelong glance at Barry. “We hid from them. Under the sand.”

She shook her head. “You’re lucky they’re not the smartest bunch,” she said and resumed her path, though her brow was deeply creased. “I have to say though, it’s worrying to hear that they’re active this far south. They’ve stayed away the last couple years. Maybe they’re getting bolder. I don’t like that.” For a moment, she seemed to forget that the two of them were walking alongside her. “No, I don’t like that,” she repeated, quietly. Then she perked up again. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled. Thank you for bringing us the news.”

“Of course.”

They soon merged with a stream of people, all funneling into a huge, long tent. As they waited in line, people around them stared curiously at Barry and Lup, occasionally prompting Antlion to introduce them. A halfling in armor came by to deliver a message to the Elder, and she spoke with her for a moment. Eventually, Antlion turned and excused herself, telling them she had some business that needed tending. “I’ll find you again after dinner,” she promised, and squeezed through the crowd. Barry and Lup, with nothing to do but stand and wait, exchanged a look, raising their eyebrows at each other in a way that said, “What a day, huh?”

Surrounded by so many strangers, hours out from a near-death experience, Lup was painfully grateful to have him with her.

Finally they made it inside the tent, and now they could see what dinner looked like in the town of Airlines. Long tables with benches stretched down the dining hall- enough to seat around a hundred people. The only thing orderly about the queue was that it streamed around the perimeter of the tent until it terminated at three large cauldrons on the other end. Several cooks were ladling stew and mashed root vegetables into bowls, which were then picked up and taken to be eaten at a table. The chatter was nearly deafening and people crossed from one table to the next, visiting and bringing drinks, but the chaos never felt dicey. This was clearly a society of people who all knew each other well, and knew how to make things work.

After what felt like an eternity of standing on sore feet, stomach grumbling near-constantly now, Barry leaned close to Lup’s ear. “You know, I’m thinking we might have died for real back there and now we’re being punished for a life of stew-related sins.”

Lup let her head drop back and she laughed loud enough to startle the person in front of her. She was tired enough that she could have segued right into crying, but the line started moving and Barry gently urged her forward, grinning sleepily.

As soon as they each had a hot bowl in their hands, they started spooning it into their mouths. Lup spotted an empty spot at the end of a table and hurried to claim it for them. The bizarre logic to having a line so long was that by the time the last people were seated, the first were already getting up to leave, so the hall was never overcrowded. They smiled politely at the other occupants, but they just nodded and went back to their conversation.

They had nearly been last in line, and so didn’t feel bad taking their time to rest. The two of them sat in comfortable silence, but Lup entertained herself by studying the people around them and listening to snippets of conversation. She noticed a table across from theirs had attracted a gaggle of children, all surrounding an elderly dwarf. All through dinner he half-heartedly attempted to shoo them away, saying, “Wait until I’m done eating, then we can have a story.” But the kids just hunkered down until he could make good on his promise.

“Alright, alright,” he announced after emptying his cup. “Where were we today?” Conversation at the tables closest to his quieted down, and Lup got the sense that storytime was this guy’s specialty.

“You were gonna tell us how we killed the gods.”

Lup, who had always had a healthy distrust in authority, was suddenly very interested in storytime.

“Yes, yes. Well, a long time ago, _ long  _ ago, before the language we speak even existed, the gods ruled over us. And the children of the gods- the demigods- roamed freely in the lands, and they were emperors over the kingdoms of the world,” he said, his low voice rumbled so that it carried clearly through the air, and Lup found herself as transfixed as the youngsters who sat at his feet. “Now, the gods had given their children the power of magic, and their children used that magic to make crops grow, and to heal the sick, and rain fire on their enemies. They molded mountains, and summoned demons, and bewitched the strongest minds. They could reach out-” the dwarf tapped the forehead of the closest child- “and kill you with a word. And they could reach out-” he did it again- “and bring you back to life with another. 

“The children of the gods subjugated their kingdoms this way. If your farms were dying under a drought, you could beg your king to bring rain over your lands, and he could hold your family in his service for centuries in exchange. Or, maybe he could walk right into your house and charm you so you’d be happy to give your children to be his slaves. Or, maybe if he was having a bad day, he could turn you to stone for a laugh.” He shrugged. “They created magical relics and forced the people to pay fortunes for them, all for the promise of a better life. And they made armies of us, used us as fodder for their wars. But were there victories ever good for our people?” He shook his head. “No. We suffered either way.”

The stew wasn’t sitting so well in Lup’s stomach anymore. She looked at Barry and he mirrored her grave expression.

“However! Meanwhile, the people were working. Over eons, we evolved. We learned to make machines, so we were able to survive without the magic. We practiced science, so we could understand the world, and the secret knowledge of the demigods was worthless to us. They tried to stop us, but the less we needed them, the less they could hold on to. Over time, the children of the gods became powerless, and one by one, the people of the kingdoms rose up and killed them.” He shook both fists in the air, and the kids chattered restlessly.

“Shh, that’s not the end of it. When the last demigod was killed, the gods in their heavenly plane took notice. They had entrusted the world to their children, but now they were dead, and the gods were furious. We enjoyed an era of freedom and bounty, and then the whole world was blighted. The planet became hot, so hot that the seas dried up. Rain became a precious rarity and plants refused to grow. Whole continents of people starved to death, leaving behind the ruins of the cities they had built, and all their technology was buried in the dust. People scattered in search of a place where they could thrive. And one of those places was here.” He pointed down at the ground below. 

“Are the gods going to have more children?” asked a small boy.

The old dwarf and some of the adults nearby chuckled. “I don’t think so. But you know something?” He narrowed his eyes. “Some of the children of the gods did have children. And their children had children. Have you ever heard the story of Blanch the Hag who lives in the mountains?”

One of the mothers interrupted. “Odo, please, no nightmares tonight.”

He waved good-naturedly. “Alright. Maybe that will be a story for another time, for the older kids.”

There came a chorus of disappointed _ Awws  _ and Odo announced that it was time for bed. Parents ushered the children out of the tent and soon all that were left were a few stragglers still dining and others on kitchen duty picking up dishes.

Barry and Lup sat a while longer, sharing a worried look. “Well,” Lup finally said, “that does explain some things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :o
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	10. Chapter 10

“What do_ you _make of all that?” Lup asked Barry, voice lowered.

“I don’t know… A spellcaster ruling class?”

“It appears so. Or it could be that a thousand-year-old legend may not have 100% accuracy.”

“That too.”

Over Lup’s shoulder, Barry spotted Antlion in the doorway, waving at them. The two of them quickly stood, picking up the bags they still carried, and went to meet her.

“I apologize for leaving, but it looks like you two found your way on your own,” she said, smiling.

“It really hit the spot,” said Lup. “Did you get to eat?”

Antlion chuckled. “When you have my job, you miss a meal here and there.” She held open the door and they stepped outside. “Let’s get you set up for the night. I’m sure you’re absolutely exhausted.”

“You would be right,” Barry said, and Lup concurred. She began to lead them farther into town.

“In the morning you’ll hear a bell ringing- that’s when breakfast is ready. But afterwards, if you’d like to trade for supplies, you can stop by the trading post. Rusk will be open then.”

“We don’t have much left but we’ll see what we can work out,” Lup said. “Do you have vehicles for trade?”

Antlion looked a little uncertain. “We do have a few. I know you’ll need a ride if you’re going to make it anywhere, but I warn you, they won’t be cheap. Though, Rusk has been known to accept services in exchange for goods if you don’t mind helping out for a time. He’s reasonable.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“We’re fairly isolated out here but we hold an important position in the commerce of the region. Travelers depend on us to be a haven from the Wastes. And we depend on them too. Hospitality is important to us but we can’t give ourselves away for free, you know? We’d fade away.”

“Of course. We understand.”

She smiled at them. “And I’m sure my guards gave you some talk about hustling you out in the morning, but if you aren’t ready to venture out tomorrow, you’re welcome to stay a little longer.” They passed a well, which Antlion explained was free to drink from, though they should ask for approval if they needed anything more than a drink. Not far away was a series of stalls for showering, which they were welcome to use once every other day. There was also a laundry station right behind that utilized a filter to recycle water from the showers.

After that was the residential quarter. It was made up of rows of tents, each about as big as a small house, Lup thought. They stopped at the first one still illuminated with lantern light and Antlion peeked inside. “Do we have room for two guests in here?” Muffled voices replied. “Yes, a couple,” she continued. A brief response. “Perfect.”

She turned back to Barry and Lup, opening the flap wide for them. “Well there we go! We have one more mat for you.”

“Oh,” Lup began, but then didn’t really know what else to say. If this was their last bed, offered for free out of kindness, they shouldn’t be picky. They didn’t have a choice. But maybe there_ were _two single beds somewhere, Antlion just assumed they would want one? Should she speak up? Maybe Barry would say something.

Barry didn’t say anything. She knew he felt just as awkward.

They ducked into the tent and thanked Antlion as she bid them good night. It was comfortable enough inside, the air warmed by a fire pit that vented smoke through a hole in the ceiling’s peak. About a dozen or so people were settling down, smoothing out blankets on padded mats, speaking quietly, folding clothes, attempting to calm small children. Mats were arranged wherever they could fit, separated by narrow footpaths. Parents wedged their kids between them so they were all tucked together under the same blankets. 

“I noticed you at dinner. Did you just come in?” asked an orc man who was tending the fire. 

“Yeah, just after sundown,” Lup said. “Antlion was showing us around; it’s very kind of her to make sure we were taken care of tonight.”

“Well, sorry you had to come on rat stew night.” 

_ Oh. That’s what that was, _Lup thought. 

“But we like visitors. When they’re nice.” He tipped his head meaningfully. “They’re good for business, but you still have to be careful out here. We’re good judges of character though.”

“I think we are, too,” Lup replied, sharing a look with Barry.

“Here, we’re gonna be putting the lights out soon.” He pointed to the far side of the tent. “We have a double bed in the corner there. Sorry, you’ll have to set it up. Hasn’t been used in a bit. But there should be enough blankets in that crate.”

After putting their bags down and out of the way, they unfolded the mat and brushed off the dust that had found its way in. It looked just wide enough for two people. Barry took one end of a blanket, Lup took the other, and they shook it flat before lowering it onto the mat. Another three blankets and they figured it would be warm enough to get them through the coldest hours of the night.

In the pause before they dared climb inside, Barry asked, “Um, do you want, do you have a preference for which side, or-?”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. Whatever,” she said. 

There was another excruciatingly polite pause before Lup decided to slide in on the side closest to her. She rolled away from him, pulled the blanket over her shoulder and told him, “Goodnight.” 

He hesitated, but then she heard him lay down. The blankets tugged as he kept shifting, and she got the distinct impression he was doing his best to leave a few inches between their bodies, but the bed just wasn’t that big. He had to have been touching the floor next to him. She wanted to scold him for making this so uncomfortable- it wasn’t that big a deal if their backs made contact. But she didn’t know how to say that to him without coming across as, well,_ eager. _

The lanterns were turned off and the only remaining light was the glow of the smoldering fire. Lup ruminated on the fact that she knew she could share a bed with any other member of the Starblaster crew and it would be easy. It had been nearly fifty years- she could probably even bunk with Davenport and neither of them would think twice about it. But with Barry- who she spent most of every day with, who knew her almost as well as her own twin brother- it meant too much.

The night became silent, disturbed only by occasional whispers, or a cough. Lup noticed that a few beds away there was a young couple wrapped tight in each others’ arms. She pulled the blanket over her face, feeling oddly voyeuristic. They were just sleeping. But it did make her wonder how all these kids were made with a communal sleeping situation like this.

As she started drifting, she realized that she wasn’t cold. There was still a chill in the air but it wasn’t unbearable. A dozen bodies in one room contributed a lot of radiant heat. And under the covers she felt rather cozy. As soon as she began to revel in how comfortable she was, her eyelids drooped closed, and she was out.

She woke to the clanging of the breakfast bell. The tent was already empty, but Barry still snored next to her. He’d rolled over onto his stomach at some point, his shoulder pressed at the center of her back, nearly pushing her off the mat. But she wasn’t too bothered. Lup was sorely tempted to spend another few minutes appreciating the scenario of a morning spent sharing blankets with Barry, but the fear of missing out on breakfast was just a little stronger. 

Flinging the covers off her body, Lup rolled into a crouch and started opening her bag. She had some toiletries in her backpack for easy access, but the rest of her clothes had been lost in the crash. Barry stirred as soon as she was out of bed, and he stretched, yawning. “What time is it?” 

“Breakfast just started.” She began brushing out her hair.

“Already?” He groaned. “I feel like I just went to sleep.”

“Better hurry. I’ll grab us a spot in line,” she said, putting her brush away. “I’m gonna shower after.” 

“Oh yeah, the shower,” Barry said wistfully, and felt around for his glasses.

“See you in a bit.” Lup trotted out the door and began down the path. The town was prettier in the daylight. She noticed things that she hadn’t when they first arrived. Many of the tents were painted with images of plants and animals. Down an intersecting road she noticed there was a pen full of livestock she had completely missed the night before. Near the center of the settlement, by Town Hall, was a stage with a canvas roof, and she wondered if they ever held performances for entertainment. 

Soon she was at the line for breakfast and she took her place at the end. The sun had scarcely come up over the mountains but she was already starting to sweat. Barry joined her after a few minutes and they made a game out of sniffing the air and trying to guess what was cooking.

It turned out to be more stew. Lup was positive the meat was different, and there appeared to be bits of egg mixed in this time. She supposed the only way to make sure a hundred people got even portions of everything was to make it into stew. But as long as she was full, she had no complaints.

Near the end of the meal, Antlion started making rounds, stopping at various tables and chatting. She ended up at Barry and Lup’s spot and asked them how they slept, if they needed anything. Lup brought up the fact that they’d like to take a shower and wash their clothes, as they were down to one outfit each.

“Oh, that’s right,” the Elder said. “Well, we do have a community chest at Town Hall that might have something that can be salvaged. Our defense party encountered a merry band of raiders out for blood while on the road a few months ago; I believe we still have the spoils from that victory. If fashion isn’t your concern.”

Lup wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by this until she was pulling the clothes out of the chest herself. She held up a tattered linen shirt patched with raw cowhide and grimaced. Barry was inspecting a pair of pants. “I think this is some kind of reptile skin,” he said. There was a lot of leather to be found, which Lup didn’t mind in and of itself, but all had been repeatedly recycled, and not with design in mind. One jacket was torn in a way that reminded Lup of a stab wound, and opening it revealed a brown stain that confirmed her guess.

A clerk was sitting at the counter organizing some scrolls and occasionally watching them from the corner of her eye. The two laid out every piece on the floor and tried to visualize what could be done with the materials they had. If someone could lend them some thread and a needle, there was a lot of potential. The clerk was fanning herself as she worked and every time the air stirred, a stench rose from the old clothes. This would be so much easier if Lup could just use magic. She could just_ Prestidigitate _the filth away.

They each picked out a couple outfits they thought they could make do with and put away the rest. After thanking the woman there, Barry told Lup he was going to take a look around, and Lup headed for the showers.

An attendant gave Lup a large bucket of water and a bar of soap. She observed another woman pouring the bucket into a large metal bowl mounted high on the stall roof. It fed through a pipe which crossed over the wall and began to spray out of a shower head. The woman disappeared behind the wall and draped her towel over it._ Pretty inventive, _Lup thought.

Nearly two months it had been since Lup had had a real bath, and as she stood under the spray, she could swear it was rainfall from the celestial plane itself. The water was perfectly cool in the dry, hot air. She felt the grime in her hair breaking down under the suds and as she rinsed, her hair was like silk. It was nice to remember the form she had under layers of sweaty clothes. But she didn’t have time to enjoy it as much as she desperately wanted._ One bucket per person _was the rule, and her funnel emptied far too soon.

Next she headed for the clothes washing station, and some people sat out wearing towels, or underwear, or nothing, as they scrubbed laundry in a large, long tub. Lup wrapped her borrowed blanket tightly around her chest and tucked it shut. Another attendant dumped more water into the tub, and Lup followed the others’ cue.

After scrubbing in one container, there was another meant for rinsing, and then a clothesline for drying. While she waited, Lup made small talk with some other folk who were also sitting. The drying didn’t take long in the heat. She dressed herself in her own clothes, which were still slightly damp but refreshing. As she collected the rest, she wondered what Barry had been doing to keep himself busy this whole time. It was very possible he was waiting for her to find him. Maybe to avoid seeing her in a towel. He was too shy, she thought, but that was one of his qualities she couldn’t help but cherish.

On the walk back to the tent where they had slept, Lup reminded herself of her original mission for the year- having a discussion with Barry about the feelings between them. Progress so far was zero. When they set out from the Starblaster, the prospect of nearly a year alone with him seemed like more than ample time to make it happen. So why had it felt impossible to broach, to the point that she was starting to worry that it would never happen? 

Maybe it was the bike. They couldn’t talk while they were on the road. Maybe since they were only able to make conversation during meal breaks, and then by the end of the day, they were tired and ready to sleep- they just never had time to get into it._ Yeah, _ Lup assured herself, _ we just haven’t had time, yet. _

She didn’t count the nights that they had climbed into their sleeping bags and laid in silence, eyes open, and the thick miasma of expectancy hung in the air; when typical pleasantries wound down to a close and each waited for the other to say something new and important- no, they didn’t count.

She rehearsed again.

_ Barry, there’s something I think we need to finally address. _

_ Barry, let’s be the scientists we are and hash this out methodically. _

_ Barry, you and I both know we can’t ignore this forever. _

_ Barry, can I tell you something? _

_ Barry, can I ask you something? _

_ Hey. Um. So I’m in love with you. _

Lup suddenly felt a tingle of anxiety bloom in her chest and she shivered to relieve some energy. _ “Fuck,” _ she muttered. 

She entered the tent and stopped at their mat. The clothes he had picked were here and his bag was gone. He was probably at the trading post, she figured. Picking up her own bag, Lup decided to head over, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm enjoying the extra time I have for writing. It's helping me pass the time a lot. I hope you guys are staying sane too! Thank you for reading, and thank you to those who have commented :)


	11. Chapter 11

When Lup arrived at the trading post, she found Barry at the far end of the lot, very preoccupied under the hood of a vehicle. She stood behind him for a moment before figuring he had been too focused to notice her.

“Hey,” she said. He jumped and withdrew from under the hood.

“Oh! Good, I was gonna come get you. So, here’s what I’m thinking.” He brushed the dirt off his hands before wiping his palms on his jeans and turning away from the car. Next to them were three vehicles parked in a row. Barry gestured at them. “So these are all in good condition. But they cost more than we could possibly pay off by working, at least before we run out of time. We just don’t have enough left. But this-” He spun back to the vehicle he was examining before. “This is a piece of shit! It doesn’t even run anymore.”

Lup made an expression of mock joy. “Just what we need!”

“The guy was telling me he’s been tinkering with it for months, but pretty soon he’s just gonna salvage the parts.” Barry lowered his voice. “I think I can fix it, though.”

“Really?”

He leaned back over the engine bay and searched inside for a second before moving to the side to let the sunlight beam in. Lup peered in where he had a finger pointing near the back of the engine block. “See, there’s a little crack in the metal there?” He moved his finger to another spot. “And here? I’d bet there’s more where we can’t see. It’s probably having compression issues and the coolant and oil are mixing, and that’s a real bastard of a repair to do. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless you’re a fucking wizard with a Mending spell.” He rubbed his hands together, looking pleased with himself.

Lup smirked. “And so, what, you think he’s just gonna hand it over for free and when it miraculously starts running they’re not gonna be curious at all?”

“Well, no. We’re gonna have to make a big production over pretending to work on it, probably right until we leave. And of course it won’t be free, just cheaper.”

Lup ran a mental checklist of everything they owned. “We don’t have any magic items left to trade, though.”

“Yes, we do,” he said.

With an uneasy twinge, she thought about her Ring of Alter Self. “What?”

“The tent!” 

Lup had a moment of relief, then a flash of embarrassment that she would even worry he would suggest such a thing. Then, she was just confused. “Barold, we do need that to sleep without dying at night.”

“Come here.” He beckoned her to follow him around the side of the truck. She realized the cabin of the car was limited to just the front bench seat; the rest of the car was a truck bed covered by a hard shell. Barry patted the metal shell. It sounded a bit thinner, but not flimsy. He led her to the back and lifted a hatch above the tailgate. Lup leaned in to study the compartment. The bed was just long enough to stretch her legs out, just wide enough for two people to lay side by side, and the roof was just high enough to sit up. Two small windows on either side let in dim light.

“I mean, it won’t be any comfier than lying on the ground, but we’ll be out of the elements, we won’t have to worry about our ride being stolen at night, _ and  _ I bet we could tie some stuff up on top for storage.”

She couldn’t help but agree that it would be nice to have something more substantial than a bike on the road. Barry waited for her to mull it over as she strolled back around and opened the driver’s side door. The bench seat was upholstered with rough fabric, not quite free of holes, but not falling apart. She climbed in and bounced on the springs. One’s ass might get sore after a long day of driving, but could be worse. As she tested her grip on the steering wheel, Barry cranked the window down and shut the door. He leaned on it and watched her press some buttons on the radio, flip the visor down and up, open the glove compartment. Eventually, she sat back and placed one hand on the wheel, her other arm draped stylishly on the back of the seat. “Hmm.”

“I mean. You would look really good driving it,” Barry offered.

Lup flashed him a devilish smile. “You really do know how to sell me on anything, don’t you?”

\---

“That’s a child’s tent,” Rusk said.

“It’s a _ magic  _ tent.”

“I’m no chump, buddy. Can you prove it?”

“Check this shit out,” Lup announced, and she got down and crawled inside. Barry waved at the man and followed after her.

Barry peeked his head out through the flaps. “Ta-da! Perfect fit.”

Rusk took a step back and rubbed his whiskers in amazement. “Well, I’ll be,” he marveled.

He climbed back out. “And the internal temperature is consistently mild, so no worries about the cold nights.” After a gesture from Barry, Rusk kneeled down and looked inside. Lup waved at him and then did a flourish, showing off the interior like a good salesperson. 

“Oh it’s huge in here!” he said.

“That’s right!” He stepped aside and let Lup exit. “The way it works is you can bring anything in but you have to take it back out with you, so you can’t use it for storage.”

“That part’s a shame. But I ain’t seen anything else like it.” Rusk circled around the tent, lifted it up, and folded it. “Easy travelin’.”

“Indeed it is,” said Lup.

“Hmmm…” He set it down again and spent a couple more moments inspecting and deliberating. “Where did you get this?”

Barry jumped in. “Inherited it from relatives. No idea where they found it.”

“Huh.” Finally, Rusk straightened and stood in front of them, crossing his arms. “Well, I’d say it’s a good enough trade for a piece of junk that does nothing. I do hafta warn you again, outta my own conscience, that I don’t see any chance that thing can be repaired so it won’t die on you once you’re out in the Wastes.”

“I think, given enough time, we can figure out something to do with it,” Barry assured him.

“And just so we’re clear, I’ll go ahead and give you 48 hours to do a return, but after that it’s yours for good, alright? I get to keep this.” He jabbed a finger at the tent.

“That sounds reasonable to me.”

Rusk put his hands up, as if to signify that he was releasing it from his control. “Alright.” He held one hand out to Barry and shook his hand, then Lup’s. “That’s a deal then.”

He let the two of them celebrate for one joyful moment before speaking again. 

“Now then. How you gonna pay for gas?”

The two fell quiet and shared a blank look, then looked at back at Rusk.

“Um… Are you hiring?” Lup asked.

\---

The next couple weeks were devoted to rebuilding the inventory they had when they left the Starblaster. Since they were out of bargaining chips, they filled their days with working odd jobs and doing chores. Sometimes, Lup would do laundry for whole families, others she would dig post holes around the gardens, and every evening she helped out in the kitchen. Barry found regular jobs to do as well, but he also made sure to spend a couple hours each day fiddling with the truck. Pretending to look busy while actually doing nothing turned out more difficult than expected. Sometimes Lup would help him pass the time by climbing under the engine with him and chatting as they lay on their backs.

Sharing a mat at night was getting more comfortable for them. At one point, early on, Lup decided to be the brave one and scoot a few inches so her back was pressed against his. From then on, Barry seemed to understand it wasn’t the most embarrassing thing ever, for their bodies to touch under the blankets. The extra warmth was welcome, too. Lup’s suspicions that she might be a fan of this were undeniable. But after a while the excitement of this novelty faded; soon, she realized she still wanted just- more. Occasionally, when their neighbors a few mats away would cuddle close and whisper gently to each other, Lup would pull the blankets over her head and curl up into a sad, besotted ball.

Finally, one morning after breakfast, Lup and Barry got to the task of taking stock of their new inventory. They were sat across from each other on their bed, sorting gear between them. The tent was otherwise empty of residents.

“I think we might be able to trade this for some blankets,” Barry said, folding one of the jackets he had recycled from the community chest. A couple spells had it looking nearly brand new. “Maybe get them to include the pillows. But if not, I bet I could shovel some cow poop in exchange for some wool and make a couple.”

“That would be good,” Lup mumbled, a little distracted by her task. She had a small pile of rocks in her lap and was attempting to magically shape them into something useful. So far she had a mortar and pestle and a couple pots with lids. “Barry what else is made of stone? I’m blanking.”

“Uhh.” He thought for a second. “I think that’s it. You’ve done it all.”

“Come on, please. There has to be something else I can make that would be extremely valuable to somebody.”

He leaned forward to take a look inside the pots. “They’re gonna think it’s a little weird that these look completely unused.”

“I’ll put some dirt in them.”

Barry blinked and pointed at her. “Arrowheads.”

“Yes! Duh.” Lup bumped her palm against her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.” She gathered some smaller rocks in front of her. It felt good to be doing magic again, even though they were constantly glancing at the entrance, on edge. A warm burst of light flashed dimly under her hands, and when she lifted them, five sharp arrowheads lay where the rocks had been.

“See, I made them look like they were flaked by hand.” She presented them proudly.

“Very nice.”

“Some hunter is going to want these,” she said. “What else do we need still?”

Barry found his handwritten list and skimmed it. “Well, there’s the gas that Rusk is going to pay us… Salt and oil for cooking… Oh, and...” he paused and seemed to deliberate. “I was thinking, maybe we should-” He shrugged. “-Have a gun?”

Lup’s eyebrows leapt upwards. “Like a _ gun  _ gun?”

“I mean, I think it might be useful to have a weapon that isn’t magic. Casting anything around anyone paints a huge target on our backs.”

She tried to imagine Barry shooting a rifle. It was hard to decide whether that would look hot or dorky.

“I don’t imagine it would be cheap. But we can ask around,” she said. Barry wrote it on his list.

The rest of the day was spent shuffling around town trading for as many of the items on their list as they could, interrupted by a couple jobs they had previously agreed to. Right before the sun went down, as Rusk was inside the trade depot getting ready to close, Barry repaired the truck.

Once the fissures were magically mended and the oil and fluids changed, he leaned into the driver’s side door and turned the key. Rusk appeared almost immediately after he heard the engine turn over. Lup, standing guard, waved at him as he approached. He came to stop in front of the vehicle, listening to it rumble. Barry got out and slammed the hood shut. 

“Is it alright if we do a test run down the main road?” he asked.

Rusk shrugged, hands on his hips and looking skeptical.

Barry held both arms to the side and bowed his head at Lup. “After you, madam.”

She squealed and all but hurled herself into the driver’s seat. Barry climbed in on the passenger side just in time for Lup to throw it into drive. They maneuvered out through the lot’s gated entrance and set on a straight path down main street, careful to give people plenty of time to get out of their way. The truck was purring like a big, big cat.

The two of them exchanged a look that was bright with pride and hope. Lup turned her attention back on the road. The sun was just about to disappear under the horizon and she flipped down the visor to protect her eyes. Through the open windows blew cool air that ruffled the hairs that had come loose from her ponytail. She gripped the steering wheel and gently, effortlessly turned the truck around to head back to the lot. About a ton of ancient metal rattled around and behind her and it was all perfectly under her control. Next to her, Barry leaned back in his seat and dangled a hand outside. 

Oh, yes. She could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's better than this? Girls driving trucks.
> 
> For the size and model of the camper truck, I picture something kind of like this: https://bit.ly/2WRVl6Q   
BUT for the a e s t h e t i c I really liked this funky old model I found: https://bit.ly/2y2gT8s
> 
> Thanks for reading guys! :) Again, if you commented, I read it and I love you like my own child.


	12. Chapter 12

On their last day in Airlines, Lup awoke early. Everyone else in the tent still dozed. She figured the anticipation of today’s departure had thrown off her inner clock a bit. Next to her, Barry had turned over onto his back, and so had she. Lup had never been so aware of how much they both moved around in their sleep until the mornings when she had opened her eyes to see his face in front of hers. This morning, she watched his face in the gray dawn light and imagined she lived in a world where she could roll over, place her head on his chest, and fall back to sleep until breakfast. 

Tonight they’d be back in their sleepings bags, bundled securely away from each other in the back of the truck.

Lup decided she may as well get up and quietly start getting ready for the day. She slipped out of bed and grabbed her pack. Maybe she would take on the task of customizing her newly-acquired wardrobe so they lived up to her fashion standards. First, she headed to the showers for a bath, lamenting the probability that it would be her last for weeks, maybe months. A few people milled about, taking care of early duties, but it was quiet. After a good, thorough scrub in the shower, Lup sat down on a bench, drying her hair and watching the sun rise. As light poured over the landscape, she closed her eyes and felt the heat bloom across her skin, the gentle wind stir the hairs on her arms and legs. Soon, she recognized the smell of breakfast being made and her growling stomach brought her out of her reverie. 

Cinching her towel tight around her chest, she pulled some clothes out of her bag and began to formulate today’s Look. Her philosophy had always been that important occasions needed special outfits. It was just another way to commemorate the moment. Today they would be back on their way to completing their mission, restocked, rested, and reinvigorated. And she was _ so  _ pumped to drive that old truck again. Provided it didn’t break down, she was already developing an affection for it, as though it was actually a new horse instead of a rusty hunk of metal.

She laid out her repaired jacket, freshly oiled so it was a shiny dark brown. It would be a major piece in all her outfits now- it was a practical garment for the desert, but it was also _ so badass.  _ The shoulders were padded to cast a more intimidating silhouette, and the back of it was begging to be painted with some kind of gang logo. She made a note to come up with one. Next, she picked a linen shirt with a ¼ button up collar. She guessed it was originally white, but was now quite yellow with age. None of the buttons matched, which she thought was a fun detail. Her pants were leather as well- black leather- but patched from many different swaths of material, each of varying degrees of wear. A simple mending spell had tightened up all the seams so that she didn’t worry about its durability. 

Of course, it was important to have some accessories. To add a pop of color, she chose a red scarf that she had traded for. It was a light wool scarf that could easily be tied around her face or could be used to tie back her hair- and it was on-brand. Finally, she had a pair of leather gloves, salvaged from the community box. They were mostly falling apart, but she had given them new life simply by cutting off the fingers. She put these on last, and she gripped her hands into fists, appreciating the broken-in feeling. Lup thought that her days of looking like a tourist here might be over.

On her way back to the tent she ran into Barry, who stopped only after doing a double-take. “Oh! I didn’t recognize-”

Lup giggled and put her hands on her hips, taking a couple turns like she was at the end of a catwalk. He didn’t say so, but from his expression, she got the sense he appreciated her choices. “You gonna pick out a cool outfit so you can match with me?” she said.

He lifted the bag he was carrying. “We’ll see, I guess. I’m off to take one last shower.” 

“I’m gonna drop off my stuff and get in line for breakfast; I’ll go ahead and grab a bowl for you.” 

“Alright.” Barry waved as she started to walk away. “See you there.”

“See ya.”

\---

Right after breakfast the two got to packing up all their supplies and possessions. As they were loading up the truck, Antlion found them at the trading post lot.

She smiled at them as she approached. “Well, looks like you two are going to be just fine.” She gestured to the truck in disbelief. “You came here with nothing just a couple weeks ago!”

Barry finished shoving a bag into place and wiped his brow. “You all were very kind to us; we would never have been able to build our resources back up without you.”

“Yes, thank you so much, Antlion,” Lup said.

“It was no trouble. And we appreciate all the hard work you did for us while you were here. Is there anything else you need before you hit the road? Did you stop by the medical center?”

“Yes, we put together a first aid kit and got a couple potions.”

“How about ammunition? What kind of defenses do you have?”

Barry and Lup looked at one another. They had asked Rusk what he had in stock but everything he showed them was too far out of their price range. In the end, they decided they would be fine relying on their magic. “Well, uh,” Barry started, “we’ve got some knives and- I found an old post I was going to carve into a bat…”

Antlion furrowed her brow and eyed them skeptically. “Follow me to Town Hall for a moment.”

They obeyed, and made the short walk with her to the building where they had first met. “Wait outside, I’ll be right back,” she told them. After a couple minutes, she reappeared, holding a hunting rifle and a small box that jangled metallically with each step.

“Take this. No offense to you, but you’d have to be insane to wander around out there unarmed.”

Barry stammered, “Oh, you don’t have to- that’s a lot to give away-”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be just fine.” She handed the gun to Lup, who took it and tested the weight of it in her hands. 

She looked at Barry and shrugged. Couldn’t hurt to have.

“Don’t let those Jackals get close to you again. I doubt that hiding in the sand like lizards will work a second time,” Antlion said, smirking at them. 

She accompanied them back to their truck as they explained what some of their immediate plans were. Lup was suddenly reminded of a question she had wanted to ask. “Oh! I was wondering if you could tell us anything about something we saw on our map.” Leaning into the open window of the truck, she retrieved the map from her pack. She spread it open and pointed at the tiny drawing of the oasis. “Do you know what this is?”

Antlion took the map and peered at the spot. Then, a look of recognition. “Oh, this is the little oasis down near the mountains. Yes, I’ve met a few people who found it.”

Lup couldn’t help but gasp quietly. “It’s real?”

She handed the map back to Lup, now shaking her head sadly. “I’m sorry to say that place dried up some 6-7 years ago. Your map may be a little out-of-date.” Lup’s heart sank. “I’m sorry,” Antlion said again.

“That’s alright. I was just hoping for a fun pit stop on the way.”

“Well, you never know.”

Antlion helped point out a few more areas of interest on the map, some of which were good trading spots and some of which were dangerous gang territory. Lup marked everything with a pencil. Eventually, Antlion glanced up at the position of the sun and explained she was due across town. “I’ve got boring duties to attend to, but I wanted to make sure I saw you one more time before you left. Make sure to remind my daughter she still has your weapons. And if you come back this way, please visit us.”

“Thank you again for everything,” Lup said and shook her hand, followed by Barry.

“Thank you for being good guests,” she said, and parted.

Once the truck was ready, they drove up to the main gate and hopped out to meet with Cedar, who was waiting. She didn’t have as many warm words for them as her mother, but Lup figured it was part of the job. “Safe road,” she bid them as she handed them their knives.

And with that, they were off.

\---

The ride was a little bumpy, but Lup grew accustomed to the heft of the vehicle almost immediately. She slowly brought it to higher and higher speeds as Barry nervously glanced back and forth between the speedometer and the road. In the rearview mirror she could see clouds of dust billowing behind her. In front of her, open road for miles.

After an hour or so of driving, they had both gotten comfortable in their seats. Barry had been looking out the window, humming to himself, when he turned to her. “Oh! I forgot, I have a surprise.”

“Oh?” Lup said. He leaned down to pick up a satchel off the floor and unzipped it. She tried to keep her eyes on the road but managed to look away long enough to see that he had retrieved a small, crudely constructed guitar. “Oh my god, when did you get that?”

Barry grinned boyishly and plucked a few strings. “Picked it up yesterday. I met this kid who makes guitars so I commissioned him in exchange for doing his chores for a week.”

“Can you _ play? _ ”

“Nope!” He strummed it clumsily. It at least sounded in-tune.

Lup laughed. “Are you going to teach yourself?”

He shrugged. “Possibly. See if any of my piano skills transfer over. Even though I haven’t played piano in, uhh, about 60 years.”

“Maybe it’s like riding a bike.”

“Maybe. Do you think knowing violin would translate?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really, I’ve tried.”

“Darn.” He attempted to play a chord, with mixed results.

The idea of Barry teaching himself to play guitar on their trip was nearly too adorable for Lup to handle. “What made you want to?”

“Well, I figured with the truck we’d be able to actually entertain ourselves on the road. We weren’t able to really do anything on the bike all day, and there’s gonna be a lot of time to kill.”

“That’s true.” She flashed him a smile she hoped was appropriately flirty. “You’re gonna have to serenade me,” Lup said.

He blushed a little, a sign she had been successful. “No guarantees it will be any good.”

“You’ve got a couple Bard levels, I know you’ll manage.”

Barry fiddled with the instrument for a while longer before putting it away. They chatted about the usual things- wondering how the crew was doing, planning tomorrow’s travel, recalling stories from past cycles. Lup appreciated that even after all these years they hadn’t run out of things to say to each other. Even when the topics were old, she could never tire of the bonding, the flow of words between them, the effortless understanding they shared. At lunch they ate the food they had packed in relative silence- but the quiet was never uncomfortable. She’d shared many a quiet moment with him. Sometimes those were the moments when she fell for him even deeper. And the rest of the day’s drive was cozy enough that Barry nodded off and napped quietly until it was time to camp. _ This  _ is what she wanted when they first departed from the ship, she realized. _ This  _ hadn’t been possible from the back of a motorcycle. They could still have the intimate cross-country getaway she had hoped for.

When the truck rumbled to a stop, Barry roused and rubbed his face. Lup had chosen a spot off-road and hopped out to do a quick survey of their surroundings. She stretched as much as she could and tried to massage some of the soreness from her butt. Once she was sure it looked like an acceptable spot to rest, she got to unpacking some supplies for making dinner. Barry followed suit, though he was having some trouble shaking off the nap.

“Once we eat you can go back to bed, Mister,” Lup teased, lighting the campfire with a spell.

Barry shook his head. “No, when I wake up I’m gonna be wide awake all night.” He dropped to the ground next to her. “I shouldn’t have napped that long.”

“We’re gonna have to keep each other awake during the day.”

Barry handed her a bottle of oil for cooking, then he opened a bag of small potatoes. “Too bad we don’t have any books to read to each other. Well, besides my condensed notes on the Light.”

“Yeah, some real exciting reading. Oh!” Lup set up a pan over the fire and poured in the oil. “We’ll just have to play road trip songs on your guitar!”

“I don’t know any, I’m deeply saddened to say.”

“Then we’ll have to write some!”

Barry chuckled weakly, shaking his head again as he began chopping the potatoes into quarters. “Fat chance.”

“Tomorrow’s goal: at least one road trip song by nightfall,” she announced, taking the potato pieces from him one by one and dropping them in the pan.

They had a quick dinner before laying out their sleeping bags and extra blankets in the back of the truck. After getting everything ready, Lup closed the door and secured it. The two of them climbed into their beds and got comfy, then evaluated the arrangement.

“Feels like more than enough room,” Lup remarked. There wasn’t much of a gap between them but she didn’t feel crowded, and her feet didn’t touch the door.

“Yeah, cozy enough.” Barry rolled onto his side and the truck rocked slightly. He rolled back onto his back, to similar results. 

Lup bounced her legs experimentally and the truck bounced with her. “Good shocks.”

“If the truck is a-rockin’...”

Lup barked a laugh, maybe a little too loud. It was a slightly raunchier joke from Barry than she expected and it caught her off-guard. He chuckled too, a bit sheepishly.

They sighed and silence overtook them. After a moment she thought she could sense a breeze coming in. She held her hand up, testing the air for a draft.

She sat up and examined the wall. “I think there’s a gap where the shell meets the truck here.” Barry summoned a light and leaned in to look.

“Maybe we should have tested this last night.”

Lup grunted in regretful agreement. She scanned the seam that ran around the bed of the truck. “You don’t think we’ll ever need to remove the shell, will we?”

He pondered briefly and shook his head. “I can’t imagine why.”

She got on her knees and conjured a blowtorch flame at the end of her pointer finger. Slowly, painstakingly, she hunted for gaps and welded them shut. The draft was gone, but now she noticed that the small glass windows were radiating a lot of cold air.

“Maybe we can make curtains for these,” she said as she got back into her sleeping bag. The temperature was dropping very quickly. Much more than she had predicted.

Barry arranged the blankets so they were both equally covered. “Better snuggle in.”

She tried. For about a half hour she tried, until she was actually shivering. She thought, maybe if she tucked her bag around her and didn’t move, her body heat would fill the space and she’d acclimate, to no success. Soon, Barry rolled to face her.

“I’m fucking freezing.”

“Me too.”

He sat up. “Maybe if we curl up, we can fold the blankets to kind of double-layer them?”

“Worth a shot,” she said through chattering teeth. After attempting the strategy, they waited for another short time, lying still, shivering. Besides the persistent cold, she wasn’t sure she could lie curled up all night, every night. Her legs would cramp for sure. And her ears were going numb.

Lup cast a ball of flame to float over them and heat the air. “Welp.”

Barry stared into the fire. “I mean, we can’t do that all night.”

“Should we take turns?”

“We gotta be fully rested to recharge our spells.”

She sighed, and her breath was visible. “I could… heat up some rocks in the campfire. And we could put them around us?”

“That would last how long before they cool down?”

“A few minutes.”

They lay quietly again, thinking. Lup’s mind went to their shared mat back in Airlines and how she would sometimes wake in the morning, practically sweating from their trapped body heat.

It was an obvious solution, but it was going to be stupidly difficult to get there, she knew.

_ What are you going to say? Plan before you speak.  _ She imagined herself being the mature one, the practical one. Laying it out bluntly, like a professional. _ ‘Hey, I know this is a little awkward, but can we agree not to do this? We’re just two adults who have known each other long enough that this shouldn’t matter at all. It’s cold, and if we share a bed, we won’t be cold. Is that okay? Good.’ _

Maybe she would have said that 10 years ago. Not now though- now that they were on the precipice of something so important in their relationship.

_ Why can’t he suggest it? He’s gotta be thinking it, too. Why do I have to be the one to go out on a limb? _

_ ...This is survival, get over yourself. _

“I mean,” she began, less confidently than she had intended, “we could just do what we were doing back in town. Seemed to work.”

There was a short pause before he spoke. “I- yeah, that would probably...work.” He tilted his head up to look down at the blankets. “How do you wanna-?”

“We could unzip both sleeping bags flat and use one as the bottom layer and the other as another blanket on top,” Lup said, sitting up and starting to move the covers. She put out the ball of fire so it wouldn’t be in the way and the cold air quickly filled the space again. Barry got to work rearranging the blankets as well. After some awkward jostling and rocking, they had one bed wide enough for the two of them.

Both shivering again, they were quick to slide under the layers, shyness giving way to their need to warm up. Now they pressed close together, side to side. It became clear pretty quickly that the effect would not be instantaneous this way.

Lup swallowed her pride once more. “Hey Bar? Are you okay being Big Spoon?”

“Uh, yeah, I don’t mind- that’s fine.”

She turned onto her side and Barry did likewise. It took a second for him to find a place to put his arm (though the ideal placement would have been around her, she thought) but he settled on tucking it between his chest and her back. Finally, finally, the cold started to ease. 

“How’s this?” he asked.

“Nice. I mean, yeah, I think it’s working.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

“Though, my face is still cold.” She ducked under the covers and let her breath warm her skin. There was a rustling of the blankets and she could tell he had done the same. 

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Foremost, Lup knew this was a practicality. She wasn’t about to let her feelings rule her actions when it came to preserving their lives out in The Wastes. But as she started to relax, she couldn’t help but make note of the snug little shelter they shared, or Barry’s breath rustling her hair, or his form behind her, soft but sturdy. She thought maybe she would be kept awake focusing on the slow, steady rhythm of his chest rising and falling, but instead, without realizing it, she was lulled into safe, peaceful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Hope you guys are safe and taking care of yourself out there. Thank you for reading, as always :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a bit of a retroactive edit in chapter 2 because, I don’t know but I did my math really wrong! I removed the bit where they learn how many miles away the Light has landed and changed it so they just know it landed in the opposite hemisphere. I realized the trip would actually be way too short and would not take a full year like they’ve been saying. Just a heads up so you don’t feel like I’m trying to pull one over on you readers! Nothing else has been changed.

Back on the road, Barry held the guitar in his lap and strummed the same three chords over and over. There was some amount of time before they sounded like something harmonious. After he seemed to feel as though he had a handle on them, he arranged them a bit differently and practiced that. 

Maybe if it was her brother or Magnus who had picked up such a noisy hobby, Lup would have booted him out of the car by now. But there was something about the way he would tilt his head to listen to the notes like a confused puppy, something about his intense focus, his furrowed brow and set jaw that was endearing. Sometimes, Lup felt like she had endless patience for Barry. There had been a time when she wasn’t sure what the difference between friendship and love was, back when she didn’t know what her feelings for Barry were. She loved the whole crew like they were family, but there were just some things she would afford him that she wouldn’t afford the others. She figured she could add this to the list:

  * _Would listen to you play the same three guitar chords repeatedly in a car for hours _(check)

Others on the list were:

  * _Would labor secretly for months in an attempt to synthesize a dairy-free cheesecake recipe for your birthday _(check)
  * _Would stand in a cold pond at night casting light spells so you can look for a cool salamander you saw earlier, without complaining _(check)

To dear Barold’s credit, he did tell her that if the guitar got annoying, she should tell him to stop. She didn’t plan to do it, though.

Lup had written some song lyrics, like she had promised, and made Barry play his tune in a way that accommodated them. She’d had a stroke of genius and rhymed “road” with “toad,” giving them the premise of a sunglasses-wearing amphibian who traveled the desert on a motorcycle, making all the frogs jealous. It was a work in progress but had potential.

About two weeks out from Airlines, Lup woke in the morning just as Barry was stirring too. He rolled to face her, but when he saw her, he let out a sleepy laugh. “What?” she asked. 

“You’re all bundled up with your face poking out,” he explained. “It’s just- I dunno, cute.”

It was true, she had pulled the blankets over her head like a tight hood to protect her from the cold night air. “My ears get so cold at night, I’m worried they’re gonna get frostbitten,” she said. But if Barry thought it was cute, well. Maybe that was fine.

“Aw, really?” He frowned. “I guess I don’t have that problem.” 

“No shit, Mouse Ears.” She yawned in his face.

His face wrinkled in a grimace. “Nice morning breath.”

“Glad I could share.”

It was already getting warm inside. She kicked off the blankets and stretched. There would only be a brief window when the two of them could laze about and enjoy the quiet, early hours- a brief window when she could imagine this was their shared bedroom and there was no road beckoning them to continue on.

After breakfast, they loaded up and resumed the journey. Lup hadn’t noticed that Barry had taken out their sewing kit until she heard the sound of scissors shearing fabric. She glanced at him in the passenger seat. “Is that your scarf?” she asked. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t look, it’s a surprise.”

“A surprise?” She knew Barry wasn’t exactly an arts-and-crafts man. “You’re just full of those lately, aren’t you?”

He just hummed in response and continued working. Every once in a while, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw him stealing glances at her. As curious as she was, she honored his request.

When they stopped for lunch, he presented her with a box. It was the same box they kept the sewing kit in. “I know your birthday isn’t for another month, but might as well celebrate whenever we can, I guess. I thought now would be better than later.”

She took it from him. “Is it needles and thread?”

“Well, that’s in there. But there’s something else, too- I didn’t have anything to wrap it in. Open it!”

Lup smirked at his excitement and put down her conjured ham sandwich. She opened the lid. Sitting atop its usual contents were two pieces of Barry’s scarf. They’d each been folded over and sewn shut on the side, making them about the size and shape of a knife. She picked them up. Maybe not a knife, maybe more like-

“They’re ear-warmers!” Barry announced, beaming, proud.

“Oh my gods,” Lup said, turning them over and tucking a finger into the bottom opening. They definitely were two little sleeves crafted to fit elf ears. She lifted them next to her face, gauging the size, then pulled each one over each ear, grinning back at him as he watched. She dropped her hands to her lap and let him take in the sight before they both burst into laughter. “How do I look?” 

“The height of fashion.”

She got up to see herself in the passenger side mirror. She did look terribly goofy. “Sexy!”

“You’ll have to let me know if they work out tonight.” He said as she came and sat back down.

“I will. That’s really sweet. Thank you, Barry.” She smiled at him, hoping to look as appreciative as one could look while removing novelty ear-warmers. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. And if she was, well, maybe she could blame it on how silly they were, and not on how happy Barry was to fix her problems.

Lup planned on coasting on those warm feelings for the rest of the day, but this day had other things in store.

That afternoon they were due to arrive at a small township marked on the map as _ Trade.  _ It was right in the middle of a long expanse of nothing, and Lup imagined it was an important site for travelers in the broader area. Their gas was low and they had one emergency tank they decided they would only use in the direst circumstances. But they had charted their route this week so that they would end up there and restock before running out. After the truck was fueled up, the two of them would be back on the road before night. Rolling up to the township though, they could see from a distance that something was strange.

“Is that it?”

Off the main road, down a short path, was a plot of crumbled wood structures behind a fallen fence. Lup thought that the buildings looked burned, disintegrating walls exposing furniture inside. Cloth affixed to the ground by rope fluttered in the wind- the remains of tents. Whatever had happened, had happened a while ago.

“Don’t slow down,” Barry told her as they approached.

“Why? Do you see something?”

He stared out the window, twisting in his seat to watch the ruins go by, quiet for a moment.

“...No, I just have a feeling.” 

Lup checked her mirrors nervously and nudged the accelerator a little more. The sight of the dangerously low fuel meter was nagging at her but she knew from time to time it could be wise to indulge Barry’s misgivings.

“I just... Don’t you think an abandoned town would be a good place to lie in wait for travelers who might be low on gas?” he said, watching his side mirror now.

Lup huffed a sigh. “What should we do, then?”

Barry rubbed his face and groaned. “I mean, that place didn’t look like it had anything for us, anyway. Even if we had stopped.” He opened the glove compartment and pulled out the map.

“Right. We have one tank left,” she reminded him, though she knew it wasn’t necessary. She had a penchant for getting tense when she was worried and she fought to control her tone. “Do we use it?”

Barry studied the unfolded map. “There’s nothing for two days. Unless we get lucky and meet some people we can trade with for gas.”

He looked at the map a little longer in silence. Lup trained her eyes on the road ahead, but periodically glanced at the rearview mirror which showed the view through the back window, through the camper, and through the window on the camper hatch. Nothing there. But the stillness of that destroyed town was haunting her.

“I think we just keep going as long as we can. Get us out of range of whoever may have been watching,” she said.

“And then?” 

“Then we camp and wait for someone we can flag down.”

Barry let out a slow, long sigh. “Fuck.”

They refueled with their last tank, drove until sunset, and slept. By noon the next day, they were stranded.

\---

“I could go for a margarita right now,” Lup said.

Stretched across the bench seat in the cab, faint breeze fluttering occasionally through the open doors, she could almost imagine she was reclining on a pool chair, or a beach towel. 

Barry was fiddling with the corner of a tarp they had tied up to act as a shield from the sun. One edge was fastened to the side of the truck, while the opposite edge was propped up at the corners by a couple poles driven into the dirt. On the other side of the truck, facing the road, they had draped a white blanket, hoping it would signify that they needed help. They weren’t _ too  _ close to the road, just to give themselves a little breathing room, but they were close enough to be seen by drivers.

“If you know the spell to conjure one of those, please let me in on it,” he responded. Once he was satisfied with the security of the tarp, he ducked under it and sat down on a trunk they had unloaded. He pulled off his jacket and patted his forehead dry with the inner lining.

Lup opened her eyes and rolled over, pulling herself toward the door so she could look at him outside. “How do you want to spend our vacation?”

He took off his glasses and began cleaning them. “We still need to be on high alert.”

“I know. But we’re going to have a lot of downtime, regardless.”

He shrugged. “Actually, I was thinking I might try and go hunting with that rifle.”

“Ooh! Mr. Rugged Frontier Man, venturing into the wilderness to kill meat,” Lup teased.

Barry smirked and shook his head. “I mean, if we ever need to use it, might as well practice in a way that’s productive.”

“Looking forward to some fresh food. You better deliver, Fantasy Davy Crockett.”

He put his glasses back on. “Right, no pressure or anything.”

“Sorry, I’m just-” She laughed. “The idea of you shooting a gun is a little hilarious to me.”

“Oh?” For a split second, he pretended to look affronted. “No, you’re right.”

“Can I come? Hunting?”

“I feel like we should have someone watching the road…”

“Yeah. No, that’s a good point.”

“I was thinking I’d go around dusk, when the wildlife should be a little more active.”

“Sure. Not too late, though, if you want me to clean and cook it.”

“Right.”

The next few hours were spent going through supplies, prepping the area for a more semi-permanent camping spot, and dozing in the hot weather. When the sun began to drop close to the horizon, Barry loaded the rifle and trekked into the desert, towards some rock formations. Though they had seen a few species of animals that burrowed in the sand, it was more likely that other animals would be hiding in the rocks. Lup watched him go until he disappeared over a hill. She perched herself on the hood of the truck, dividing her gaze between the road and the direction Barry had gone. After an hour or so, she heard the echo of a gunshot.

“Oh, I hope that boy hasn’t shot himself in the foot,” she murmured.

She decided to keep herself busy by assembling a decent firepit from some nearby stones. In a surprisingly short amount of time, Barry appeared on the hill.

Lup stood and waved at him. He lifted a hand in greeting, and gripped in it was a limp, furry form, no larger than his own arm. “Dinner!” she yelled. She faintly heard him laugh.

When he returned to the camp, he laid the carcass carefully on the dirt near the firepit. The animal was similar to a small deer, but with large, fox-like ears and a skinny snout. From her time helping in the kitchens at Airlines, Lup was fairly certain she had prepped and eaten this kind of creature before.

“Well done! How did it go?” she asked.

“Uh.” Barry examined his hands for blood and lay down the gun so he could cast _ Prestidigitate _ . “Easy enough. Took some tracking though. It got away from me the first time.”

Lup had already cleared out a working space and began cleaning the animal. This wasn’t too out of the ordinary for her- many times over the years she’d gutted and cooked strange animals in the Starblaster kitchen. Even earlier than that, she and Taako had sometimes had to hunt to survive- mostly small game like squirrels or fish. 

Barry, though, didn’t care to watch the process. He shuddered and turned around, deciding to busy himself with casting alarm wards around the campsite.

“You’re the one who killed it, you doof!”

“And that’s where my part ended!”

It did make for a delicious dinner, though, if she didn’t say so herself. Though she did say so, in fact. Barry agreed.

Darkness fell and the two of them settled into their bed. Lup retrieved her ear warmers from the pillowcase where she had stored them. Barry watched as she pulled them on, amused. 

“How are those working for you?” he asked.

“They work!” she said. “I thought they would slip off by morning but they didn’t last night.”

He chuckled and laid back, snuggling under the blankets until he was covered up to his nose. Lup did likewise, and when he turned over to face the wall, she scooted close against his back. She noticed Barry seemed more comfortable being the little spoon at night, though she really preferred when he was the big spoon. Maybe he thought it was less… imposing, she figured. A gentleman to a fault, as always.

Her ears were fine but her nose was still nipped by the cold. Over the last couple weeks she had found she could tuck her nose in the crevice between the mat and his shoulder, and there she could warm up her face. Some nights, like this night, if she pressed her cheek to his back, she could even hear the quiet, steady rhythm of his heartbeat. In her half-sleep delirium, she wondered if there was any other man as good as him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading folks! I'm still picking away at this, even if it's not as frequent as I'd like! Hope you're taking care <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many magic antics in this one! Thanks for coming back to read! :D I'm going to add a Gun tag to this fic since it comes up a lot in this chapter and likely will keep showing up. Just fyi!

Lup work with a start. Barry was shaking her by the shoulder.

“Lup, someone’s in the campsite,” he hissed.

She shook herself awake, heart thrumming. It was still dark. “What?”

“The alarm ward woke me up. There’s people out there; we need to be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

There was no time to discuss it any further. The handle on the camper door creaked as it turned, and Lup reflexively gripped her wand under her pillow and cast _ Blink. _

Instantly, she was in that colorless realm, watching the scene below her as she floated upwards. From her new position above the truck, she could see four people stalking carefully around the camp. They were all dressed in warm clothing, their faces wrapped in scarves, and they were all armed. As far as she could tell, they didn’t seem to be members of one of the large gangs like the Jackals. Looking up toward the road, Lup saw a big, black truck with taped windows parked and idling. 

One of them had opened the hatch on the camper and was peering in, pointing a pistol inside. “There’s no one here,” she heard him say. Relief flooded her chest knowing that Barry had had the same idea as her.

The person with the gun turned back around to consult with his companions. They spent another moment inspecting the area. One of them ducked to look under the truck, another one peeked through the windows of the cab, and another one lifted the lid of the trunk that was sitting nearby. The person who was looking inside the cab rattled the handle, and finding it locked, began smacking the butt of a knife against the glass.

_ Oh no. No way, we are not getting robbed again _ , Lup thought. All fear inside her was rapidly being supplanted by rage. They went through so fucking much to get to this point, and now they were about to be driven right back to square one.

Lup flipped through her memorized spellbook. 

_ Fuck it, _ she decided.  _ Phantasmal Force, it is. _

She dropped out of _ Blink, _ feet landing heavily on the roof of the truck. The electric tingle of magic coursed through her body as she projected an illusory image into the brains of every person in the vicinity. She wasn’t an elf in her pajamas standing in the frigid, night air- no, she was a shrieking, flaming wraith, a hideously grinning, eight-foot-tall demon, arms outstretched, claws crooked and ready to slash. The four figures stumbled backwards and shouted in shock.

“ _ LEAVE THIS PLACE! _ ” she roared.

All four screamed and sprinted away, slipping in the sand, cursing at each other as they slammed into the doors of their vehicle. For good measure, Lup lobbed a fireball at the ground behind them as they all piled inside. The truck’s tires spun for a second before it lurched forward and took off into the dark.

Lup watched their retreat until the night was quiet again, and then she dismissed her spell. Barry stepped out from around the back of their truck, rubbing his arms and shivering.

“That was-” His teeth chattered- “That was fuckin’ amazing, Lu.” She stepped down onto the hood. “I mean- woof. Good, quick thinking!” he said.

Her adrenaline dying down and the cold beginning to grip her, she laughed with relief and hopped to the ground. She stumbled into his arms. “Gods, that was close,” she said, cheek pressed to his shoulder.

“I thought we were going to lose everything again,” Barry said. They shared their warmth for a short moment before he shuddered and blurted, “Fuck, let’s get inside!”

He let down the tailgate so she could climb in before he jogged back to the perimeter of the camp and cast some more guarding wards. Lup called after him to make a hasty return. After doing a quick check of their belongings, he joined her.

“Do you think they’re gonna come back?” she asked as he slid under the covers.

“After _ that?  _ Maybe if they’re stupid.”

“Well, if they are, I have plenty of spells that actually hurt,” she said. 

The cold had forced them back into bed so quickly they had settled in face-to-face, knees, bumping, without fully realizing it. It was just the fastest way to warm up, she thought. Both of them had crossed their arms in front of their chests, and the thought of grabbing his hands and warming them with hers flitted through her mind. 

“Hey, you didn’t lose your ear warmers,” Barry noted.

She laughed. “Wow, you’re right. Imagine if they had seen me in these instead.”

“They would have been utterly amazed by the impressive craftsmanship.” Barry pulled the blankets over their heads. “I can’t stop shivering!”

Lup shifted, so slightly, closer to him- just close enough so her belly pressed against his. “Brrr,” she said, theatrically. He yawned in reply and reached behind her to tuck the covers down around her back. Maybe it was the last trace of adrenaline in her blood, but in that split second, she decided to make a small, risky move. “Ooh, I’m much warmer with your arm  _ there _ ,” she teased, sounding like she had had a sudden epiphany. 

“Huh? Oh.” He chuckled bashfully- his reflexive response whenever Lup tried flirting with him. “You mean right here?” Carefully, he placed his palm below her shoulder blade.

Good man, saying “yes” to the bit, she thought. “Right there,” she said, and tucked her arms against his chest. 

“Hmm. I think you’re right, actually.” 

Then, the space was quiet, save for the sound of their breathing. The air between them was already warm. She felt like she imagined she might feel under his arm- small and secure. After a moment, they weren’t shivering anymore. Lup let her eyelids drift closed.

“Warming up?” Barry asked, voice quiet.

“Mmm,” she hummed in response.

“Good. We’re gonna be fine.”

“Yeah, I know.”

\---

24 days, it took. 24 long, sweaty days of lounging in and around the truck, doing their best to stay cool, and trying to come up with ways to entertain themselves.

The night after they were almost robbed, Lup had been getting ready for bed when Barry, already under the blankets, rolled over to face the wall, eyes closing, ready to sleep. She had hoped that, last night, they had taken down some small barrier of intimacy and now this new routine meant that she could fall asleep in his embrace from now on. But Barry had seemingly turned around and politely put up that wall again. Lup had slid under the covers and curled around him. _ Stop being so upset about this,  _ she had chided herself. _ He owes you nothing.  _ And so they went back to their normal arrangement at night, Lup claiming the little spoon position first when she could.

They continued to hunt, taking turns so that Lup could practice handling the rifle. Occasionally they enjoyed a fresh meal, but mostly they saved the meat to dry into jerky, eating conjured food instead. It would be a nice snack to have on the road, but it would also be a handy bargaining chip. Conjured food was adequate for keeping them fed, but it did not keep very long after its creation, making it an ethically dubious trade. At least real meat would continue to exist more than a few minutes after the transaction. Conjured water, however, would last as long as real water, once summoned. Lup wasn’t sure why, but she theorized it had to do with being a purely elemental spell.

Vehicles on the road were few and far between. Most did not even slow down to investigate their situation. It was understandable, they thought- to another traveler, their apparent helplessness could easily be a front for a deadly trap. But this left the two of them at the mercy of strangers who would have to trust that Barry and Lup weren’t about to kill them, while Barry and Lup would have to hope the same of them. 

The first vehicle that stopped carried a large, gruff, older man with a wild, gray beard and a bandolier of ammunition over his duster. He got out and stood by his fortified van, holding a rifle low and squinting at them from a distance. They were both seated in the truck with the doors open. Barry waved at him.

“You needin’ help?” the man yelled.

“We ran out of gas,” Barry replied. “Are you able to trade?”

The man grumbled a bit and took a couple steps towards them. Lup nudged Barry and pointed downward, indicating the gun stored under the seat. “Just to hold?” she whispered. 

“Uh.” Barry glanced back at the man, then back at Lup, then at the floor. He turned and addressed the man again. “Hey, uh, I’m gonna hold my gun too since you’ve got yours, hope that’s okay.”

He grunted in response and continued sauntering toward them.

Lup and Barry both got out of the truck and stood in front to meet him. He stopped about ten feet away.

“Ran outta gas, huh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Barry replied.

“Poor plannin’.”

“Yeah, well- we were planning to stop at the trading post a bit north but I guess it’s gone now.”

“Gone?” He furrowed his heavy brow. “First I’ve heard of this.”

“We don’t know what happened. It’s destroyed,” he said. “Actually, we suspect that bandits are hiding out nearby waiting to attack travelers. We almost got robbed the other day but we scared them off.”

He scratched his furry chin and gazed down the road, in the direction of the wasted trading post. “Concernin’. Good to know,” he mumbled. “What have you got to trade?”

“We have some jerky. Some tanned hides. We have extra water. Uh, some stone arrowheads-”

“You’re trading water for gas?” the man asked, one eyebrow lifted.

Lup spoke up, “Well, the idea is if we have gas, we can drive somewhere that has more water.”

“Hmm,” he rumbled, thinking for a moment, and casting a cursory glance around their camp. “Well. Unfortunately, I don’t have gas to spare. Closest market is more than a day’s drive south by southwest.” Barry and Lup deflated a little, but he continued. “Since you don’t know how long you’re gonna be out here, the best I can do for you is trade you a little more water to last you.”

The two of them exchanged a guilty glance. Barry said, “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that, we’re not really in need-”

“Now, you never know. Could be a week, could be more.”

“Sir, please, we have water for weeks, we don’t want to take yours,” Lup said. 

The man cocked his head a little. “Water for weeks but no gas at all?”

She smiled sheepishly. “Poor planning.”

“Yeah, we’re real big dummies,” Barry contributed.

The man considered this for a bit, then looked down at the rifle in Barry’s hands. “What caliber?”

It took a second to realize what he meant, but Barry recalled the number written on the ammunition box and told him.

He nodded in response. “I’ve got some of that I’m not using. I’ll go get it and you show me the hides.”

“Yes sir, sounds good.”

Barry hurried around the side of the truck and unfastened a couple of the animal hides they had hung to dry out. Lup stayed in front, watching the traveler return to his van. He opened the back hatch and leaned in to open a crate.

A small voice rang out from the back seat of the car. “Papa, are they bad?” The man hushed the passenger.

After a moment shuffling through his inventory, he came back with a half-full box of ammo for the rifle. They let him inspect the hides. Once he decided they were to his satisfaction, he asked to take them all. They agreed it was fair. With the extra bullets, they could hunt more if needed.

“Alright,” the man concluded. “Thank you for the information about the post up north. Looks like I’ll be changing course.”

“And thank you for stopping,” Lup said.

“That was very kind of you,” added Barry.

The man shrugged and turned to walk back to his vehicle. He stopped to load his goods into the back and then climbed into the drivers’ seat. Before he closed the door, he called to them, “Safe road.”

“Safe road!” they echoed, in unison.

The van turned so it was headed back in the direction it came from, and soon, it was fading into the distance.

They hit the two week mark. Then, the three week mark. 

Barry kept practicing the guitar and was making considerable progress writing simple songs. With very little memory of how to transcribe music, he did his best to record them in his own shorthand. Lup would then do her part, thinking up rhymes to accompany them. By the end of their stay, they had five “goofers” (Lup’s comedy songs, mostly about anthropomorphic animals), and two songs Lup referred to as “the real shit” (more serious tunes- one about dying in the hot desert and another about what they would do if they found an oasis.) Lastly, they wrote a theme song for their truck, titled “Nerd Patrol.” Some nights, when the sun began to set, and dinner was done, and the fire was burning strong, they would sit side-by-side and sing together while the cooling air soothed their sunburnt flesh.

On the last day, they were relaxing under the tarp roof behind the truck. It was about midday. Barry had been practicing a song, and Lup didn’t hear the sound of several approaching vehicles until they were close. She peeked at the road through the cab windows, staying low. There were two trucks, plus a motorcycle. As they slowed to a stop, dust clouds fading behind them, the drivers sat and watched. “Barry, look,” Lup said, prompting him to stop playing and join her. Suddenly, she realized she recognized the truck in the front. Black, with stripes of tape on the windows.

“Oh my gods, those are the guys who tried to rob us.” 

“What? Are you sure?” 

Lup remembered that Barry was effectively blind at night. “Yes, that’s the truck I saw, I know it.”

The people in the vehicles continued to stare at their truck, obviously uncertain about the sight of it. The man in the first truck wore sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat. He turned and spoke to someone inside. The people in the other truck, as well as the motorcycle driver, seemed to be waiting for a signal from the first driver.

“Fuck, what should we do? Why did they  _ come back?”  _ Barry asked.

“My guess is they want proof of what they saw.”

He reached for the handle of the passenger side door. “Should we get the gun?”

Lup tilted her head, then shook it. “No, you know what? I kinda want to keep fucking with them.”

Barry pulled his wand from his belt. “Okay. What’s the plan? Same as before?”

She retrieved her wand as well. “Maybe not. I wonder if we can leverage this to our advantage if we pull this off right.” The sound of a door opening drew her attention back to the window. Ten people filed out of their respective rides and stood talking by the road.

“This is it?”

“It looks the same as it did that night.”

“Just looks like an abandoned truck to me.”

“I swear I saw people here when I drove by the other day-”

“I heard music just now when we pulled up.”

If the two of them could get these guys to fuck off, and leave behind some of their goodies, well- that would be killing two annoying birds with one magical stone. Lup put her hand on Barry’s arm. “Here’s what I’m thinking.” She drew him close and whispered her plan in his ear. With a mutual nod, they parted and began to put their scheme into motion.

Cautiously, the bandits began to step closer to the camp, fanning out and holding their guns at the ready. 

She was glad they hadn’t burned many spell slots yet today. 

The first step was to cast _ Message  _ and slip her voice into Sunglasses’ brain.  _ Leave this place,  _ she hissed, gently but clearly. 

He jerked backwards like he had just been slapped. “I heard it! I heard it say to leave this place just like that thing from that night!” The others looked at him, not convinced. 

“We didn’t hear nothing,” said a bandit wearing a vest with no shirt. 

“It was the same thing, but it was, like, in my head!”

Another man, an elf, continued his walk to the camp. “Calm down. You’re jumpy.”

Lup hit that one with the same spell. _ You shouldn’t have come back. _

He came to an abrupt stop and whirled on the group. “Is one of you fucking with us?”

They all shook their heads, confused. The guy in sunglasses pointed at him. “Did you hear it too?”

This elf’s fuse was apparently very short, Lup observed, because he was already screaming. “One of you said that!”

Now other bandits chimed in, denying his accusation. A few others moved back toward the road. “Okay, no, I knew we shouldn’t have come back. There’s no point in being here, let’s _ go! _ ” begged one of them. 

It was time to secure their way out of here. 

Lup dropped to the ground and, peering at it from under the truck, whipped _ Cone of Cold  _ at the motorcycle, careful not to catch anything else in its path. It instantly iced over and dropped on its side. The bandit wearing a helmet ran back to investigate what had happened and shouted her incident report. 

“My bike is frozen! Look!”

“Frozen how?”

_ “Frozen like ice!” _

Just as the group began to approach the bike, Barry launched his part of the attack, and his part was a little more flashy. He replicated her use of Phantom Force from their first night here. He had been caught up in the range of her spell and had witnessed her display as well, though he had surmised immediately it was her. Instead of disguising himself with the demonic visage, he projected the image on top of the truck as he hid on the ground. 

_ “So you have returned to face your judgement,”  _ he roared, his illusory voice echoing for a mile around. Every bandit responded by taking aim and spraying a hail of bullets at the vision. The creature didn’t flinch through the entire barrage. 

Lup took her cue to shoot a few Magic Missles at the tires of the second truck. Each one popped loudly, one detaching from the axel entirely, and the vehicle shuddered and slumped in place. It startled the bandits into ceasing fire.

_ “I am the arbiter of all your misdeeds,” _ Barry continued. _ “Your sin reeks like putrid carrion in my presence.”  _ The flames that licked the demon’s limbs flared and venom oozed from its fangs. _ “Go now, and seek penance, lest you find me once again on the road.” _

_ One more thing, _ Lup thought. A good, old-fashioned _ Thaumaturgy  _ cantrip was all it took to simulate an earthquake under the gang’s feet. They rocked in place, tripping and scrambling as they screamed at each other to get into the one undamaged truck. Once they had stuffed as many people into the cab as possible, the rest vaulted into the bed, though they barely had time to climb in before the vehicle was speeding away, leaving dirt clouds in its wake.

Lup stood up from her hiding spot and wiped the dust from her palms. The phantom faded as Barry rose to meet her, grinning incredulously.

“Holy shit, Barold!” she yelled. “Why are you so good at being spooky?”

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, I, uh, got a little method there, didn’t I?”

“That was fucking radical- okay, first off, our next song, we’re changing genres. We need to write a metal song so we can use  _ ‘Your sin reeks like putrid carrion in my presence.’ _ ” 

He laughed again. “I can’t believe that worked so well!”

“I guess, in a world where no one else can do magic, it’s just pretty easy to make people believe any freaky shit you show them.” Lup crossed to the other side of the truck to inspect it for bullet holes, but found that the bandits had all fortunately aimed high enough to miss. She pointed a thumb at the two left-behind vehicles. 

“Want to check out our loot?”


End file.
